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VIEWS 



OP 



OUR HEAVENLY HOME 



A SEQUEL 



TO 



A STELLAR KEY TO THE SUMMER-LAND. 



BY 



ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS. 



"Dreams cannot picture a world so fair, — 
Sorrow and death may not enter there ; 
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom, 
Far beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb." 



> 



ILLUSTRATED WITH DIAGRAMS. 



BOSTON: 
COLBY & RICH, 

Banner op Light Publishing House, 

No. 9 MONTGOMERY PLACE. 
1878. 




tf 









Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 

ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Trow's 

Printing and Bookbinding Co., 

205-213 East \ith St., 

NEW YORK. 



INTEODUCTION. 



The author has been persistently charged with " tearing 
down " many time-honored structures. He replied : " 'Twas 
but the ruin of the bad, the wasting of the wrong and ill." 

But he here presents a volume devoted mainly to " build- 
ing up," by means of a revelation of facts and principles 
existing in the inmost constitution of Nature. A new 
heaven and a new universe are now offered in place of 
the old and erroneous, which, however tottering and untena- 
ble from base to turret, are still occupied by numerous 
talented and learned families. 

"If you tear down our sacred dwellings," say the con- 
servatives, " why don't you give us something better in 
which to live and die ? " Thus you emphatically exclaim ; 
but I ask : Are you in earnest ? Are you ready for the 
question ? prepared in your hearts for re-formation and re- 
construction ? When our modest, tender-hearted, clear-eyed 
Whittier " woke as from a dream," during which he had 
witnessed the ruthless overthrow of Sacred temples, he 
said: — 

" I looked : aside the dust-cloud rolled, 
The Waster seemed the Builder too ; 
Upspringing- from the ruined Old 
I saw the New." 

The stellar heavens have interested mankind from the 
earliest periods. They are, and they have always been re- 
garded as the most sublime, the most elevating and inspir- 
ing, of all objects and questions known to the mind of man. 

As much as possible the author has avoided technical 
terms, and employed such language and illustrations as 
would be most intelligible and require the least study. But 



IV INTRODUCTION. 

he would have his readers accustom themselves to thought- 
ful meditation upon these ennobling themes. 

The first part of this work is deemed a necessary prepara- 
tion for an understanding of disclosures, made in the second 
part ; and the third and concluding portion, being an " ex- 
planatory discussion of important questions," is submitted 
as a necessary supplement to this and to parts of preceding 
volumes. 

The telescope, as practically ajjplied, has been in the 
world only two hundred years. Seventy-five years later, 
which brings the time very near our day, Newton discovered 
Gravitation. The printing-press is a comparatively recent 
invention ; that is, mankind lived upon this earth thousands 
and thousands of years before the power to print and pub- 
lish a book was discovered and applied. In fact, with this 
stretch of time in view, it seems but a few weeks since 
the first appearance of the printing-press, the steam-engine, 
the electric telegraph, the spectroscope, and the telephone. 
The religious darkness, the intellectual stagnation, and the 
material poverty of mankind prior to these inventions, need 
not here be mentioned. 

Along with these material developments — in a manner, 
analogous to them in order and importance — came magnet- 
ism, clairvoyance, psychology, psychometry, and spiritual 
intercourse. Just in proportion as the physical discoveries 
have promoted physical freedom and commercial brother- 
hood, so have intellectual and religious liberty, and the 
overthrow of despotism and tyranny succeeded the applica- 
tion of the above-mentioned mental discoveries. 

But these mental discoveries are capable of accomplishing 
more good for mankind than is yet conceived ; for, as yet, 
we but stand upon the threshold of the boundless domains 
to which they point the looking millions. 

The author hopes that the readers of this volume will per- 
ceive at least some of these promised benefits, and be en- 
couraged thereby, and enlightened sufficiently to enter upon 
the new universe and into the new heavens of harmony and 
peace. 

A. J. D. 

New York, February 16, 1878. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Clairvoyance, its Origin, Powers, and Progressiveness 9 

The Superior Condition described 12 

Psychophonetics, their Development, Laws, and Wonders ... 14 

Consciousness, its Sunshine, Delight, and Storms 17 

The Pivotal Power, its Laws, Servants, and Manifestations . . 22 

Interior View of the Outer World 28 

The Language of Correspondence 32 

Skepticism, the Cause of true Knowledge 38 

Emanations, their Origin and Importance 40 

The Elevation of Men unto Gods 41 

Primitive Believers in Spiritualism 43 

Missionaries of a New Gospel , 45 

Authorities for the Individual Guidance 47 

Ceremonies, Old and New Forms 50 

Cherubim, meaning of the Word , 53 

Significance of the Human Body 54 

Cheerfulness, an All-healing Medicine 55 

Origin of Family Trees 57 

Stoicism, Morals both Ancient and Modern 59 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Innate Justice, Origin of Conscience 60 

The System of Nature Described 65 

The Sixth Circle of Suns 70 

Magnetic Rivers in the Upper Spaces 76 

Author's Views confirmed by Science 79 

Origin of Electricity and Magnetism 80 

Location and Functions of the Celestial Currents 88 

How Spirits Ascend and Descend 91 

The Pilgrimage of the Human Race 94 

A Description of the System of Nature .'..... 99 

Psychophonic Message from Pythagoras 104 

The Universe, a Musical Instrument 107 

Concerning the Solar and Astral Centres 110 

Origin of Astrology, its Scientific Basis 113 

Wonders of the Great Central Sun 117 

Multiplicity of Mental Sun-centres 119 

An Arcanum Concerning the Summerlands 121 

Formation of the Milky Way 124 

Origin and Motion of the Solar Systems 125 

Beauty and Glory of the Planets 128 

Appearance of Jupiter and Saturn 130 

A Remarkable Custom in Jupiter 134 

Inhabitableness of the Exterior Planets 138 

A Belt of Cosmical Bodies around Mars 141 

The Summerland as seen from Mars 145 

Reality of Life in the Summerland 148 



CONTENTS. Vll 

PAGE 

Concerning the Problem of Time and Space 150 

Immense Size of the Isle of Akropanamede 151 

Remarkable Persons in the Summerland 154 

Speech of a former Citizen of New York 156 

A Person Older than the Pyramids 157 

A Diakkian Satire on Ideas and Theories 160 

A Natural Home not Made with Hands 162 

Earth's Distance from the Summerland 165 

Individual Occupation and Progress after Death 169 

Despair of Persons who Knew it All 172 

"Wonderful Scenes in the Summerland 176 

Flight of Thought can be Determined 179 

Disappearance of Bodily Organs after Death 182 

Eating and Breathing in the Spirit Life 183 

Ancient Temples and Religions visible 184 

The Seven Lakes of Cylosimar 191 

Attractive Assemblages in Separate Localities 194 

Unhappy Destiny of many Suicides 201 

Heavenly Benefits for all Mankind 204 

Domestic Enjoyments and true Conjugal Unions 206 

The True Harmonial Life and Religion 207 

The Eternal Cycles of Progression 211 

Distribution of Cold and Heat on Planets 217 

Ponderability of the Imponderable 220 

Alleged Errors of Clairvoyance 223 

Concerning the Perpetuity of the Human Form 228 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Diversities of Spiritual Gifts 233 

Explanation of the Superior Condition 237 

Focus of Thought in the Summerland 242 

A New Test Oath for the Spirits 246 

Predictions Gradually Fulfilled 249 

Origin of the Christian Scriptures 253 

Sources of the World's Wealth 255 

Evils in the Social Structure 256 

Origin of the Doctrine of the Devil 258 

The First Doctor of Divinity 260 

Answer to the Charge of Atheism 261 

Laws of Distances in the Solar System 262 

Modern Phases of Infidelity 265 

Conversion, or a Change of Heart 271 

The only True Missionary Work 274 

Personal Efforts at Purification 275 

Convulsions in the Orthodox Hell 277 

Meaning of the Words, Hell and Punishment 283 

How to Make Progress in New Ideas 287 



SEQUEL TO THE STELLAE KEY. 



CLAIEYOYANCE. 

ITS ORIGIN, POWERS, AND PROGRESSIVENESS. 

Blinded by prevailing materialism, and deeply per- 
plexed by the conflicting claims of an incoming Spiri- 
tualism, the candid and brave, yet cautious, searcher 
after pure truth finds himself unable to fix a just valu- 
ation upon the natural powers of the human mind. On 
the materialistic side he beholds man's mental attributes 
as so many exquisitely refined galvanic forces, or self- 
conscious currents and throbbing emotions, evolved by 
the combined action of cerebrum and cerebellum ; on 
the other hand, on the Spiritualistic side, he beholds 
man's feelings and thoughts as so many manifestations 
of various superintending intelligences, of spirits and 
angels more or less perfect, who perpetually originate 
and feed whatever he may think or feel. The first 
party consign him to the bottomless pit of oblivion at 
the moment of death ; while the party of the second 
part, although opening the sky to him on leaving the 
earth, consign him to a mixed and dubious existence 
well-nigh unintelligible. The first teaches him that 
mind is the most perfect fruit — the superlative degree 



10 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAK KEY. 

of organization — upon the matter-tree of the universal 
world ; the second teaches him that mind is at best but 
a medium for the demonstration of disembodied men- 
talities. 

But is there not a third party who should be sum- 
moned to yield testimony upon this important ques- 
tion ? Of this other group of witnesses the writer is, 
and from the first has been, a well-known member and 
illustrator. 

Clairvoyance is as certainly a power of the human 
mind as is memory or consciousness. It is not derived 
or borrowed ; it is innate and natural. That clairvoy- 
ance, as to its manifestations, can be simulated, I do 
not deny ; but I do deny the doctrine, with the authority 
of knowledge, that the real power of vision can be 
projected by another's will into man's mind. And yet 
it is true, and this truth is of the. first importance 
in all investigations, that magnetism, or some influence 
equivalent, is indispensable to its origin and growth. 
The insistent materialism of the physical body acts 
like a clog to the feet of the interior spirit. The 
blinded eyes, behind the bodily organs of vision, must 
be rubbed and brightened up by magnetism. But once 
truly opened, once perfectly developed through the 
cloud of brain-matter, they can never again be wholly 
closed. To the eyes of the inward mind amaurosis is 
an impossibility ; although, by the force of disease or 
the oppression of circumstances, the exercise of these 
wondrous eyes may be, nay, often is, suspended.* 

* The condition, mental and physical, which is now most gene- 
rally sought and known is, the state of " mediumship." which has 



CLAIRVOYANCE. 11 

Terrestrial or celestial magnetisms, and sometimes 
nothing but the refinements of certain attenuating dis- 
eases, are required to originate clairvoyance. But when 
fully established, when it is consciously a part of the 
mental operations of the mind, and under the control 
of the will, which stage is the highest attainable in this 
world, it is a power of most wonderful scope. It has 
four phases, or, more properly, in different persons it is 
manifested in from three to five forms. The very high- 
est is telescopic ; I mean exactly what I say — telescopic. 
For example, the sun is supposed to be 92,000,000 of 
miles from where I now write. Clairvoyance can bring 
it so near that it can scarcely be seen ! Its extreme 
nearness strikes and blurs the mind's eyes. And yet, 
these eyes do not see anything of that external sun 
which is contemplated by astronomers. It was a long 
time before I had perfectly and practically acquired this 
essential truth. Everything is seen from its vital points ; 
thence outwardly and successively, until the outmost or 
matter-forms are fully discerned. Thus clairvoyance 
is the vision of the natural eyes exactly reversed or 
inverted. And here it may be remarked that the mis- 
takes and blunders of persons gifted with clairvoy- 
ance find in this fundamental fact a complete and all- 
many varieties of manifestation. It seems to most persons the only 
mental state by which spirits and mankind may freely meet and 
converse together. Of mediumship there are about twenty-four 
differing forms. The reader is referred for information concerning 
these states, to " The Arcana of Spiritualism," by Hudson Tuttle ; 
to "The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse," also to " The Pres- 
ent Age and Inner Life," by the author; to "Isis Unveiled," a 
remarkable work by Mme. H. P. Blavatsky ; and to a large list of 
lesser works written by persons in the medium state. 



12 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

sufficient explanation. (See further remarks in the 
Appendix.) 

Here you are invited to read an eloquent and literally 
true delineation of the state termed the " Superior Con- 
dition," written by Dr. S. B. Brittah, who is one of the 
most comprehensive thinkers and elegant writers in the 
new school. " When our footsteps have encircled the 
earth ; when we have surveyed all orbs in space and all 
outward forms of being on their surfaces ; and even 
looked through the last open door in the stellar heavens 
into the outer darkness beyond, we have yet to pene- 
trate the inner mysteries of being. Then the faculties, 
by a kind of introversion, begin to open in a new 
direction. We look inward and reach centreward ; 
and at every step the mind is intromited to a new and 
more interior sphere of being. The shadows that float 
in the dim atmosphere of our earthly life gradually dis- 
appear ; the translucent forms of a superior creation 
hover about us ; and from the loftiest summits of this 
world, we behold the immortal da}^-spring ! 

" The grandest of all human discoveries is made 
when the senses are opened from within, and we are 
brought into conscious relations with the vast realm of 
the invisible and eternal. How does the spirit thrill 
with amazement and ecstasy at the grandeur of the 
scene presented, when the great veil that seemed to 
cover the world is suddenly drawn away and we are 
made to realize, that in the wide Universe there is 
nothing concealed — that all doors are open to man. 
Before the vision of the philosophical Seer everything 
is transparent as the luminous ether. He dwells in a 
region of ineffable light, and can know no darkness 



CLAIRVOYANCE. 13 

save the obscurity that depends upon moral conditions, 
or the existing state and relations of the soul. The 
solid earth becomes a crystal sphere ; the rugged moun- 
tains stand out in the clear air white as alabaster forms ; 
and the fathomless depths are discovered to be illu- 
minated ways where the spirit may dwell in light and 
walk alone with God. 

"If we gradually enter upon the inner life we at 
once begin to see those divine realities which before 
were only objects of faith and hope. The stormy pas- 
sions of this rude world are hushed, and sweet peace 
soothes the unresting heart. The music of glad voices 
and the universal harmony are precious realities to our 
waking consciousness ; radiant forms people our day- 
dreams or glide before us in ' visions of the night when 
deep sleep falleth on man.' Through rifts in the clouds 
of our mortal sphere we catch glimpses of happy faces, 
whose entrancing smiles are the attempered glories of 
God and his Angels. If by a sudden and strong de- 
velopment of this vision we are ' caught up into heaven,' 
things are revealed which the laws and limits of human 
speech do not enable us to communicate. But with 
reverent and grateful hearts we remember, that, at the 
approach of the humblest soul, the everlasting doors of 
the inner temple are freely opened." 

The foregoing is a faithful description of the pro- 
gressive stages which ultimate and blossom into the 
" Superior Condition." 

The forms of clairvoyance, are, first, a glimmering 
perception of things as in somnambulism ; second, a 
narrow and limited vision of disease, of personal acts, 
of metals, and of things terrestrial exclusively ; third, 



14 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

a discernment of personal states and emotions ; thence 
thought-reading, psychometry, fortune-telling and pro- 
phecy. But there is in reality no clairvoyance of much 
value until the higher phase is fully developed. 

And yet development is one of its ever-present possi- 
bilities. The mind must be harmonious, or at least 
considerably self-poised and tranquil, and the purposes 
of the seeker unselfish and exalted. Then the will is 
pure and under its direction, and the eyes of the immor- 
tal may be unclosed. A steady progressiveness will be 
likely to characterize the spiritual perceptions, which 
should be systematically exercised. The temple of the 
starry heavens will swing wide open its flaming doors, 
and the gardens of the summer-land come as near as are 
the fields of earth to the bodily eyes. The very near 
worlds of matter melt away, and the very far off spirit- 
ual universes sweep into your immediate presence. 
This is what happens to every worthy mind a few hours 
after death. 



PSYCHOPHONETICS. 

THEIR DEVELOPMENT, LAWS, AND WONDEES. 

" Happy they," said Father a Kempis, " who pene- 
trate into internal things, and endeavor to prepare 
themselves more and more by daily exercises to the 
attaining to heavenly secrets." 

Among the treasures of the human mind, which are 
more numerous than the stars and more precious than 
all the constellations combined, is the power, or sense, 



PSYCHOPHONETICS. 15 

of hearing sounds which are, and forever have been, 
perfectly unknown in the outer universe. These soul- 
sounds, so to speak, which are absolutely inaudible to 
the physical ear, I term " psychophonetics." Who can 
believe, without at least some items of private experi- 
ence, that there exists a boundless ocean of intelligent 
sounds which is never, because they cannot be, heard 
by bodily organs of hearing ? 

The ears of the spirit are seldom opened in this life. 
Clairvoyance, in comparison, is a familiar power. " Their 
eyes were opened," occurs in the most ancient fables 
concerning mental illumination. " The scales fell from 
his eyes" and then he heard a voice ; but vision came 
first and led the other senses; because sight is the 
handmaid of intellect, and is the sunlight of the whole in- 
terior. With his open spirit ears he heard only " a voice," 
but with his newly-unfolded vision his understanding 
became illuminated, and love flowing in with the light, 
his whole heart and soul hastened over to the side of 
truth and deity. 

Sounds of spirit lips disturb and vibrate through an 
ethereal sea as much finer than the common air as elec- 
tricity is finer than the common water. The waves of 
these sounds can touch nothing less refined than the in- 
ternal ear of the spirit. Yet, when once the spirit ear 
is open, the inmost of all sound-waves can break their 
music within its labyrinths. Hence the voices of the 
external universe exert some influence upon the listen- 
ing soul. There is a telephony between stars and suns. 
They communicate with each other in a speech unheard 
and unknown to the ordinary human ear. A most ex- 
quisite insight into the laws of psychophonetics is indis- 



16 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

pensable to a correct comprehension of the wonders 
heard by the spiritual tympanum. Distance is seem- 
ingly no impediment to the flight of these sounds. 
Neither the interception of currents of wind, nor the 
presence of immense masses of common earthy matter 
can prevent the words of the spirit from entering the 
ear of the prepared listener. Whisperings from Mount 
Starnos in the Summer land have been heard by the' 
writer, when he was tranquil and absorbingly listening, 
and the words from those immortal lips sounded as dis- 
tinctly in his internal ear as did ever the sounds of 
ordinary speech. But such an experience is rare, and 
necessarily, because of the great and constant demands 
of the body and of the present world in which it appro- 
priately exists. 

Hearing of sounds inaudible to the common ear, is a 
truth which foreshadows the glorious ultimate life that 
is to be ; although, unlike the power of vision, it is a 
part of mind very slightly under the sway of will or 
desire. It may be suddenly developed, and the happy 
or astonished possessor may receive in a few moments 
the voice of warning or of government for a lifetime, 
and as quickly it may be closed and sealed until after 
death. Or, it may be slightly unfolded — just enough 
to admit the speech of distant earthly babblers, of rol- 
licking diakka, or of the groanings and moanings of 
sorrowing and imprisoned persons afar in this world 
— bringing to the unfortunate hearer nothing but con- 
fusion, agony and uncontrollable feelings of wretched- 
ness and despair. This unhappy form of psychophonet- 
ics is, alas ! quite too common, and inasmuch as this 
sense is not subject, as sight is, to the control and 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 17 

government of will, or reason and desire, it is exceed- 
ingly often the source of exquisite suffering and inde- 
scribable discontent. 

To overcome this incipient phase of clairaudience, I 
recommend a persistent attention to subjects of sight, 
thought, feeling, reflection, and especially of action. 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 

ITS SUNSHINE, DELIGHTS, AND STORMS. 

The counterpartal structure of the universe, even to 
the coarsest observer, is too evident to suggest contro- 
versy. The scales hang evenly balanced in the hand of 
Eternal Justice. There is as much on one side, in one 
bowl of the balance, as there is on the other — a j ust and 
equal distribution, face to face, on exactly opposite 
sides, yet in conjugal harmony with each other — of 
every substance, essence, property, quality, impulse, 
purpose and destiny. But the extent and significance 
of this fact in nature is great or small, according to the 
state and culture of the observer. The loftier and 
purer the spectator, the grander and holier the scene. 
A limited mind, which may not be open on the spiritual 
side, observes a fact, and is mentally impressed with it ; 
but such a mind feels nothing spiritual proceeding from 
it, and hence acquires from such fact only such knowl- 
edge as is kept in the pigeon-holes of memory. With 
Wordsworth, or upon minds of similar constitution, the 



i 



18 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

effect of a fact is something spiritual and sublime. 
Walking in the fields and beside streams, he testifies 
that he felt the inner life of things. 

"I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
A motion and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, 
And rolls through all things." 

The inner life of a fact, to a mind thus spiritually im- 
pressionable, is, without hesitation or controversy, the 
pivot on which its significance rests and revolves. And 
hereby I illustrate to you what is meant by the term 
"Double Consciousness," which in man is a private de- 
monstration and revelation of the counterpartal struc- 
ture of the universe. 

That every fact, like every question, " has two sides," 
is, I repeat, indisputable. Human nature is built and 
endowed upon this principle. And it is because of 
this foundation and unchangeable principle, operating 
through a countless number and varieties of methods 
and degrees, that mankind make such a multitude of 
curious and conflicting manifestations. A man's mental 
wheels turn upon jewelled pivots, provided with com- 
pensating balance movements, and with every scientific 
perfection, so that he can make progress in all places 
and temperatures, and yet no " time-keeper " more often 
requires overhauling, cleaning, regulating, or more 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 19 

careful conveyance in a pocket warmed and nourished 
by the heart. 

The sunshine of consciousness is lightest and most 
prismatic when the spirit is king, and rules benignly in 
the lower kingdom of the senses. Such a mind walks 
with his Heavenly parents ; for his inner life throbs in 
sweet accord with the Infinite heart. The holy energy 
of Love floods his private purposes ; and there are heal- 
ing and happiness in the faithful exercises of his will. 

But such delights cannot be experienced except for 
brief moments, often with painful and lengthened inter- 
vals between, because of the storms to which the con- 
sciousness is subject from the universe without. An 
interior communion, undisturbed for sixty consecutive 
minutes, would, I fully believe, unsettle the mind and 
disarrange its necessary and just relations to this sensu- 
ous life. Hence the storms which howl and break in 
such wild violence upon our daily and hourly pilgrim- 
age. Of the existence of a spiritual universe we know 
in the delightful depths of a feeling (which is flooded 
with ineffable recollections), even while oppressed by 
uncontrollable circumstances, or prostrated by the energy 
of opposing wills and conflicting associations. 

Consciousness is twofold in its constitution and 
manifold in its practical operations. Sensitive per- 
sons, because of this conscious doubleness in com- 
mingling and indiscriminate exercise, sometimes seem 
to act or speak hypocritically, or to practice du- 
plicity and " double dealing," in ordinary intercourse 
with their fellow-men. Thus the very spiritual mind is 
not unfrequently, also, a very weak and vacillating 
mind, judged by the standard of an ordinary, well- 



20 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

balanced intellect. But the injustice, not to say cruelty 
and diabolism, of such a judgment, becomes most ap- 
parent and insupportable when coupled with religious 
prejudices and social ostracism. 

The writer's experience is grounded in a long exercise 
of the spiritual side of consciousness. He has attempt- 
ed to live in both worlds naturally and healthfully ; 
not, however, at the same moment and in the same 
hours, but at different moments and in separate hours 
in the same day ; and his attempt has been crowned 
with a large, grateful, delightful measure of success. 
But a certain and complete failure invariably succeed 
ed every ambition to exist consciously in both worlds 
at the same time. " Never attempt to do two inconsis- 
tent things at once," is a motto you will find at the foot 
of the altar in my experience ; and need I say that 
obedience is with me an act of pure religion ? 

Ambitious religionists, vainly attempting to take 
the kingdom of heaven by violence, have brought de- 
structive storms far and wide over the stretches of their 
consciousness. It was with a kind of psych ophonic 
listening that "Wordsworth's internal ear caught " the 
still sad music of humanity ; " and it was with a long 
cultured impressibility of his spiritual consciousness 
that he "felt a presence that disturbed him with the 
joy of elevated thoughts ; " but what think you would 
have happened to him had he attempted, at the same 
sublime moment, to have heard the barking of his 
favorite dog and felt the gratification of eating a tender- 
loin steak % 

Shall I say to church people that they are culpably 
ignorant of human nature % And that, consequently, 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 21 

they do not comprehend the true foundation of the re- 
ligion of eternity ? And may I also say to Spiritualists 
that they do not obey the pivotal principle of conscious- 
ness ? and, therefore, that they fail day by day in 
reaping a harvest of imperishable riches from the fields 
of their immense opportunities ? They are drifting ocean- 
ward without a chart, and many are speeding upon 
narrow and dangerous voyages without a reliable pilot. 
The sunshine of consciousness is delightful, with " the 
pure in heart." Opening of the interior feeling to a 
full and free communion with eternal principles, is the 
only door, swinging on golden hinges, which admits 
the traveller to the immediate presence of the infinite 
Father and Mother. All outer search after the Ever- 
lasting Centre will fail of complete comfort to the 
searcher. Facts to the senses, or even the hidden facts 
of consciousness, are fruitless unless their " inner life " 
is seen and heard and felt. To those who thus see and 
hear and feel, the dark luxuriance of the Diakka-Land 
and the flowering glories of the Summer land alike 
seem beautiful manifestations of the Infinite Wisdom, 
differing sides of human experience, resting and revolv- 
ing upon a twofold and manifold consciousness ; with- 
out which a personal existence and consequent progres- 
sion in any world would be an impossibility. 



22 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 



THE PIVOTAL POWER 

ITS LAWS, SERVANTS, AND MANIFESTATIONS. 

The indescribably perfect wisdom of the Infinite is 
seen in nothing so complete as in the two-foldness of 
human nature and in the manifoldness of its opera- 
tions. 

" Tell me, brother, what are we ? 
Spirits batliing in the sea of Deity ! 
Half afloat, and half on land, 
Wishing much to leave the strand, 
Standing-, gazing with devotion, 
Yet afraid to trust the ocean, 
Such are we." 

Nothing more entirely transcends the comprehending 
faculty of mind than this familiar ever-present fact 
called " human nature." The solution of the impene- 
trable mysteries of the " Godhead," with the completest 
explanation of the universal system of Nature, do not 
(apparently) so much strain man's reason and imagina- 
tion as do the every-day questions, " What is reason ? B 
and " What imagination ? " The magnification by man 
of his own personal consciousness into infinite propor- 
tions and attributes, which immense Man he tranquilly 
names " God," and which he then bows down and wor- 
ships, is a child's performance compared with the im- 
possible task of answering that ever-recurring question, 
" Man, what art thou f " Man cannot answer this ques- 



THE PIVOTAL POWER. 23 

tion because he cannot transcend himself ; nay, he can- 
not ascend to the highest summits of his own attributes 
of comprehension. Therefore there forever remains a 
superior part, an Alpine peak of unapproachableness, 
a private height of consciousness to which the self- 
investigator can never attain, and which consequently 
forever remains to its proprietor a supreme mystery. 

This private mystery in the heights of personal men- 
tal existence is rendered more mysterious by the celes- 
tial influences which hover about its undefinable suscep- 
tibilities. These touch and fill it with uncontrollable 
longings for wisdom and knowledge. Doves, descend- 
ing from unknown arks, alight within its recesses ; and 
they seem to tell of things far off — awakening day- 
dreams of the lands of immortal beauty, and enkind- 
ling the flames of love and adoration for things and per- 
sons in a higher realm. 

Yery few human minds are strangers to these myste- 
rious whisperings in the heights of consciousness. But 
in the haste and confusion of common life it is not often 
that any one enters into the golden silence long enough 
to interrogate them. The popular method is to attempt 
to gratify or neutralize their celestial interpositions, by 
attendance upon "public worship," or by indulgence 
in pictures, poetry, music, and the drama. But there 
are always a few persons who seek to feed these long- 
ings by occasional association with spiritual natures ; 
by consolations through favorite agents of communica- 
tion with the departed ; or, most rarely, by the cultiva- 
tion and calm enjoyment of an " inner life." 

Shall I augment the mystery, or may I solve one of 
the supreme problems of human nature, by affirming 



24 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

that there is a Power enthroned in man's consciousness, 
to which both the matter of his body and all the mind 
in his possession are servants ? This power is the pivot 
on which his universe revolves. It lifts him superior 
to all ordinary ties and dependencies. He is cut by it 
free from every " entangling alliance," which arises 
from his intimate relationship to everything in the 
kingdoms beneath, or from the world of life which rolls 
perpetually around him. You are by this power made 
conscious of an existence independent of both Mature 
and Deity. It compels you to accept the sublime re- 
sponsibility of an eternal individual life. Its two-edged 
energy separates you from the womb that gave you form 
and consciousness. You master by it all the clogs that 
impede your growth and progress. It inspires you with 
courage, strength to overcome, patience to endure, for- 
titude to stand, motive to spiritualize matter, and with 
a sort of peri-consciousness by which you meet and 
measure everything and all persons about you. 

Am I increasing the mystery which floats over the 
summits of your already inaccessible mental mountains? 
I think that I am not. But I believe you will smile 
with incredulity and disappointment when I affirm that 
the " pivotal power" in man, to which both mind and 
matter are servants, is that energy which is familiarly 
called Will. 

Upon the diamond-point of this power turns the 
entire universe of mind. In the animal we behold 
nothing but a partial manifestation of this mystery. 
To a seer, the mental force and headlong persistent 
energy in the mind of the animal, is but a prophecy of 
that power which in man exalts him to the fellowship 



THE PIVOTAL POWER. 25 

of gods. Impulse, derived from the attractions and 
repugnances of awakened inclinations, is all the will- 
energy ever manifested by an animal. And it is also 
true that this is the origin and quality of all the will- 
power that is exercised by an animal-man ; it is all the 
will that such a man knows anything about, and it is all 
he can believe in ; for such a man is naturally a fatalist, 
and is easily rendered helpless under a pressure of ad- 
verse circumstances ; but such a man and such a mani- 
festation of the " pivotal power," is not meant by the 
terms Mm and Will employed in this chapter. 

Love is the source of quantity in a person. There is 
great fulness of life where there is great affection, 
which Hows out of love's fountain ; and there is great 
intelligence where there is great reflection and memory, 
which arise from the knowing faculties ; but there are 
presence, individuality, self-assertion, independence, 
courage, heroism, self-poise, movement and execution 
where there is Will. Both mind and matter obey its 
fiat ; it is the inherent evidence of the existence of 
God. 

Human affections, flowing as they do out of the 
inmost fountaius of Love, irresistibly cling to and climb 
about whatever acts upon them as a natural attraction. 
They have no innate power of deciding pro or con — 
whether they shall or shall not — because they are pure, 
and superior to all thought and intention. When they 
are attracted, they go ; when repelled, they retire in 
silence. They are like the angels in heaven : they 
" neither marry nor are given in marriage," for they 
flow like the life of the heart, to and fro, in and out ; 
obedient to the eternal laws of happiness and misery, 

2 



26 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

which in usual words are called attraction and repul- 
sion. To follow the ebbings and flowings of your affec- 
tions would be living a beautiful life in childhood ; but 
it would not be worthy or characteristic of truly un- 
folded men and women, who are of the peerage, 
coequal with the gods who know and do both good and 
evil. 

Human intelligence and memory are obedient to a 
different set of laws ; and yet are not antagonistic with 
the best needs of the affections. The very perfections 
of infinite wisdom are displayed in the harmonious co- 
operation of these apparently antagonistic hemispheres. 
A man takes a problem in business or in society ; keeps 
it in his memory ; revolves it over and over and from 
side to side ; thinks upon it selfishly, and reflects upon 
it with the lurid fires of his desires ; hoping to see his 
way to the end of it, like a chess-player ; and planning 
to out-general his adversaries, and to mentally over- 
reach those who go the same way. In the animal brain 
the same mental processes occur upon the same laws, 
but in a degree very far down and inferior to those in 
man; and yet in the animal-man there is not very 
much difference in the quality of the thinking of the 
thoughtful faculties. 

But what can the affections or the reflections accom- 
plish of themselves % They may incline or decline, and 
they may decide or refuse ; but nothing less than the 
" Pivotal Power " can impart movement and manifesta- 
tion. 

Will is not an organ. It is a fulcrum at one mo- 
ment, a lever next ; but, finally it is the sovereign 
power which moves the lever, the central god-energy 



THE PIVOTAL POWER. 27 

which animates and exercises all the organs ; the self- 
conscious Jupiter, superior to all the other deities, who 
forges and hurls his own thunderbolts through the 
heavens of the inner universe. 

Mind obeys the will, and matter obeys the will ; for 
without Will, both mind and matter, which are derived 
alternately from one another, would be motionless, life- 
less, formless, dead! 

Man is conscious of his consciousness — although he 
cannot fully comprehend the totality of his superior 
powers — and he is therefore conscious of what is called 
" orio-inatino^." From the twof oldness of his conscious- 
ness (that is, from the senses without and from the spirit 
within) man's mind derives the idea of causation. And 
causation implies and necessitates an exercise of the 
Will. If this be true of and within man, must it not 
be also true of that eternal organization of attributes, 
which is sometimes called " Omnipotence " % Will and 
causation are interchangeable terms. All material phe- 
nomena are the ever-varying manifestations of a pivotal 
energy, which is self-conscious, self-poised, independent, 
self -intelligent, and eternal in its own individual right. 
By the term " independent " is meant that which is not 
clinging and dependent like the affections, or rotary and 
helplessly self -involving like the intellect; but that 
degree of power which enables the mind to choose, to 
transform, to inspire, to act ; for truly, all independence 
is comparative. 

I would not dare to set bounds to the originating 
reach and sway of Will ; i. e., when it is pure and ex- 
ercised for a pure purpose. It can overcome all forms 
of diabolism — diseases, sensualism in the blood, vices in 



28 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

the habits, appetites in the senses, weaknesses in the 
moral feelings, hypocrisy, falsehood, and all manner of 
evil thinking. All this it can do when it is pure. But 
an evil Will is the highest expression of what in the 
religions world is called " the devil." It takes counsel 
of the inclinations of affection, which are the sources of 
desires, and it employs intellect solely to plot, and plan, 
and teach the way in which the pivotal power should 
proceed. How many fair, spiritual natures are held 
down to earth in bondage and in misery by the evil will- 
power of animal men and women ! 

If you would know the full happiness of the harmo- 
nial angels, let your Will do only what is requested by 
your highest Affections, and only what is approved by 
the reflections of your highest Reason. 



THE INKER WORLD. 

AN INTERIOR VIEW OF THE PRESENT LIFE. 

The merest mention, with becoming seriousness, of 
the spiritual world, suddenly envelopes the ordinary or 
natural mind with cloud-mists and suffocating vapors ; 
and to such minds, who not unfrequently are great 
bible-believers and church-members in good standing, 
the use of the simple term " death " acts like the drop- 
scene which separates the awful stage of eternity from 
the weeping audience left in this world. Multiply un- 



THE INNER WORLD. 29 

certainty, obscurity, doubt, and anxiety one hundred 
and fifty times, and you obtain the composition and 
magnitude of that undefinable cloud of blackness which 
hangs over the tomb. The clearest-headed, most 
analytical, fairest-minded teacher of the Religion of 
Humanity in the city of New York (Octavius B. 
Frothingham) seems to appreciate and eulogize this so- 
called impenetrable tomb-cloud as an unspeakable 
blessing to mankind. It acts like a demon of danger, 
standing with beckoning gestures upon the brink of an 
unknown sea. All men hesitate before death, and 
most men, because of the great mystery beyond, settle 
steadfastly into this world, resolved to live in it as long 
as possible, to squeeze all the happiness possible out of 
it, to perform their parts as well as possible, and at last, 
reluctantly, to die when they must. 

On the other hand, from 1747 to 1770, the most 
spiritually- minded, most intellectually and morally en- 
dowed, least enthusiastic, wholly devoted man in 
Europe, Emanuel Swedenborg, by revelations and 
reasonings almost innumerable, taught that the ordinary 
(or natural) mind in this world could experience or ac- 
complish nothing glorious and worthy unless the spirit- 
ual world, by influx, was permitted to make itself fully 
manifest in the affections, will, and understanding. He 
made the most complete and comprehensible affirma- 
tions, by means of indispensable repetitions, of the 
composition of the spiritual world, its internal govern- 
ment, and explained what he understood to be its exact 
relations to the natural world and to individual men 
and women. The spiritual world, he insistently re- 
peated, consists of three heavens, one within the other 



30 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

— the natural, the spiritual, and the celestial. The 
first, lowest, is the region of fraternal (or neighborly) 
love ; the second, or middle heaven, is ruled by frater- 
nal love, which is characterized by the love of truth ; 
and the third, or the highest heaven, is called celestial, 
because it is altogether a realm of most divine love, 
being essentially in the love of the Lord. But these 
triune heavens give you to comprehend only one half of 
the spiritual world, as Swedenborg explained it ; for 
the other half consists of three hells, one within the 
other, which in every particular are exact antagonists 
of the heavens ; instead of love to the neighbor, the in- 
habitants of the first hell are in the miseries of self- 
love ; instead of being governed by love of truth, in the 
second hell, they exist in conflict with each other, 
through falsities, evil devices, and horrible practices : 
and in the inmost hell, instead of divine, fraternal love 
and essential love of the Lord, the people give them- 
selves up to the most infernal hatreds of one another, 
insanities of diabolism, and indulge in the most dis- 
tracting blasphemies and enmities toward the Lord, and 
oppose constantly whatever is celestial and heavenly. 

But immediately after death every person first enters 
the vast " world of spirits," which is intermediate or 
between the three hells on the one hand and the three 
heavens on the other. The final destiny of each is fixed 
subsequently, under the freedom of the will, which the 
Lord everlastingly maintains, and gives to each soul at 
every hazard, and regardless of the cost to infinite sys- 
tem. Our author also discerned what he termed an 
exact correspondence between man and the supernal 
structure — three degrees, or the natural mind, the 



THE INNER WORLD. 31 

spiritual mind, and the conjunction or subjection of 
the first to the second, called by him regeneration, 
which unfolded the third degree corresponding to the 
celestial or inmost heaven. In this state, or degree, the 
individual is conjoined to the Lord — a perfect represen- 
tation of the " Essential Divinity and the Divine Hu- 
manity." 

Degrees, says Swedenborg, are of two kinds — dis- 
crete and continuous ; neither of which can, by any pos- 
sibility of intimacy or refinement, ever become the 
other. Thus the natural or external world is divided 
from the internal or spiritual world by the impassable 
barrier called " a discrete degree." It is only by influx, 
or "permission," that the love or life, and truth or 
light, of the spiritual flow into the receptacles of this 
world . 

The explicitness of the foregoing is to the end that 
what is to follow may be more readily comprehended 
by the reader. 

You are aware, doubtless, that in these later days, 
more than one hundred years after the illuminated 
Swedenborg retired from the external world, a greatly 
modified conception of the relations of the two worlds 
has taken possession of the common understanding. 
And now it seems that even his revelations demand a 
further revealment ; j ust as, by the great law of pro- 
gress, all modern revelations will require the more il- 
luminated commentaries of the seers of 1976. Re- 
ceivers of Swedenborg'srevealments %& final statements 
will, I am well aware, turn from this assertion with 
august disdain, and explain all attempted discredit of 
his claims as the direct work of evil spirits. But will 



32 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

they not sympathize with the receivers of the last book 
in the Bible ? In 1761 Swedenborg wrote an explana- 
tion of what John meant in his visions on the Isle of 
Patmos — a great many hundreds of years after the. 
visions had been experienced and recorded, not to be 
disturbed or changed under penalty of eternal death — 
which, nevertheless, Swedenborg did in a masterly 
manner, under the title of " The Apocalypse Ex- 
plained," and which he subsequently undertook success- 
fully to improve upon, being himself moved by the 
spirit of progress in 1766, when he published his supe- 
rior revealments of John's revelations under the appro- 
priate title of " The Apocalypse Revealed." And now, 
as an unavoidable consequence, Swedenborg's own apo- 
calyptic utterances call for analytical commentaries. 
The step from what is called Apocalypse to what is 
really Apocryphal is so short that even the lame and 
halt can take it. And be it remembered that what is 
here said of others, our revered and most noble prede- 
cessors, we expect and hope will be as freely and truth- 
fully said of us. 

In this chapter, which must not be too extended, 
your attention is called especially only to the corre- 
spondential method of interpreting properties and qual- 
ities, with reference to their degrees and states of be- 
ing. And first I remark that the method which a mind 
adopts instinctively and, as it were, irresistibly, as by 
an involuntary natural election, is to be explained in 
only one way, i, e., by the structure, rather than by the 
superficial inclinations, of the mental organization. 
Thus a mechanic by mental structure does not inter- 
pret the objects and qualities of nature musically ; 



THE INNER WORLD. 33 

neither does a naturally religious and poetic mind see 
and explain things like a mathematician or scientist ; 
but, by the force of an inherent law, each mind is 
bound by the necessities of its own organization and 
condition, to interpret what it sees and feels by a 
method natural to itself, but which would be arbitrary 
and a cruelty when forced upon another mind to which 
it would, by the same law, be as naturally unnatural. 
Take, for example, the case of Origen, the faithful 
Christian teacher of the third century, who in his 
" Hexapla " and " Octap la " rendered the meaning of 
the Scriptures by the most persistent and cohesive em- 
ployment of the allegorical method. He invariably re- 
garded the literal meaning as secondary. In like man- 
ner, with the same headstrong profound earnestness and 
logical cohesiveness, Swedenborg discerned a spiritual 
sense within the literal texts, and a celestial or heavenly 
sense hidden at the core of the spiritual meaning. 
Clouds, for example, denote the literal sense of the 
Scriptures, and the spiritual sense floats in with power 
and glory. Thus the Lord (or the spiritual and the 
celestial signification) is seen coming " in the clouds of 
heaven with power and great glory," etc. 

In this place I will not introduce any of the impor- 
tant explanatory conversations which I have enjoyed 
with the illustrious author of the " Apocalypse Re- 
vealed." But I may be permitted to relate how I have 
taken lessons from him, for purposes of solving his own 
method of observation and interpretation of things 
spiritual which are truly within the external, and to 
record what were the effects resultant. It is not natural 

to my mind to indulge in fables, in tropes, symbols, 
2* 



34: SEQUEL TO THE STELLAK KEY. 

figures, hidden meanings, signs, secrets, &c. ; hence 
whatever I did, or can do, by the " language of corre- 
spondence " must be from the effect of lessons and a 
determination to apply them. For a long time I prac- 
tised the method of associating in my thoughts " inno- 
cence " with the sight of the word or object " lamb," 
thus trying to see a quality, and reading its foil signifi- 
cation, whenever I saw the name of an object or the 
thing itself. When I looked up and saw a cloud, or 
read the word in the Bible, I must instantly associate 
it with the " literal sense; " in which enormous cloud 
the sceptic is often wrecked, and from which one ex- 
tremely rational mind evolved " one hundred and forty- 
four contradictions." So 1 must think of " strength " 
when I see a " lion " — of " courage " as the meaning of 
an " eagle " — of a " cow " as the good of " use " — of 
" wine" (in the Scriptures) as the " interior truths of the 
word " — of "bread" or flesh as "divine goodness" — 
and of water " baptism " as the " regeneration " of the 
mind, &c, &c. It was long before this method became 
possible for me to employ in interior investigations. 
But at length I could apply it, and I did on several 
penetrations of a city in the outer world. 

Swedenborg said the spiritual world is within the 
natural world, as the spiritual man is within the natural 
man. After a long experience I agree with him per- 
fectly; with this understanding: That by the " spiritual 
world " is meant a vitalizing, governing, developing 
world of forces, essentially divine and omnipresent with 
divine love, will and wisdom. But as to the " discrete 
degree," I find that we must, with the best feelings, 
part company and walk in different paths. 



THE INNER WORLD. 35 

One day, not long since (but it was only one of many 
similar experiments), the city of New York, as it looks 
in the spiritual world, was subjected to the telescopic 
process I have already explained. You will remember 
that Swedenborg taught that a correspondence runs 
throughout the universe ; that all things in the natural 
world (for example, in the city of New York) have 
their likenesses or prototypes in the spiritual world. In 
a word, just here let me remark that I never could find 
this statement exactly true, except in the general sense 
— that all things spring from spiritual centres of forces 
and principles which are, of necessity, dwelling within 
the outer forms and worlds which are visible to the 
bodily eyes. 

But this is what was visible to the iuward organs of 
vision : I beheld a city of living, throbbing, rainbow- 
tinted beauty. The streets and the buildings on either 
side, the trees in the parks, the water flowing through 
the pipes, the very air — all was perfectly represented, 
down to the minutest detail, as plainly as any of these 
things ever looked to my external eyes. I could see 
the shape and location of furniture in the rooms every- 
where, and the appearance of the occupants, and their sit- 
uation and circumstances, whether sick or well, whether 
rich or poor ; and often I could even discriminate as to 
the color of their garments, but especially the affections 
and thoughts which were occupying their feelings and 
brains and time. It was like stripping New York of 
its material vesture, peeling off its coating or shell, so 
to speak, and viewing its actual, vital, spiritual exist- 
ence. Even after so much of this kind of experience, I 
could hardly guard my mind from believing and my 



36 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

soul from exclaiming : " Why, truly, this is New York 
in the spiritual world ! " That is to say, it was so diffi- 
cult to keep faithfully to the fact, which for the time 
was totally obscured and forgotten, that what 1 was 
witnessing was actually and locally within the familiar 
city on old Manhattan Isle. 

But I must apply my acquired method. "Therefore 
the people in the streets and stores, in the saloons, 
hotels, habitations and hospitals, began to assume appear- 
ances according to their ruling loves, desires, qualities, 
conditions and occupations. It would consume pages 
to relate what I saw in particular instances. One gen- 
tleman's shoulder was loaded with the head of a certain 
horse, upon which his thoughts and affections were set ; 
another presented the face and head of a lamb, although 
he was awaiting the day of execution for a crime 
" proved " against him ; another's right arm and hand 
looked like a vicious serpent ; a blackbird rode on the 
head of a gentleman high in office ; a man seemingly 
great in control wore a dog-collar around his neck, with 
the initials of his office engraved upon it; a handsome- 
faced man in a beautiful residence had the hind legs 
and hips of a goat ; a quiet, very modest person, in a 
great store, had the bust of a lion ; a ministerial look- 
ing man walked like a beetle, which was an Egyptian 
symbol of the world - y a splendid ram's head surmounted 
the face of a public character, which corresponded to 
intellect and pride, destitute of love and good will ; a 
medical gentleman carried a dove upon his shoulder, 
which meant pure affection, while another doctor had 
the facial expression of a nighthawk ; and yet another 
wore upon his bosom the image of a wolf ; a lady, 



THE INNER WORLD. 37 

beautifully organized, was covered with sores and re- 
pulsive colors ; a very ordinary appearing woman had 
the most attractive crown of white lilies upon her 
brow; a procession of persons intent on deeds of charity 
for the sake of their faith, looked like a flock of ravens ; 
a cluster of thorny vines en veloped the head of a dealer 
in cheese and butter ; a man in the attitude of prayer, 
in a church, had the top of his head covered with a cap 
of gold coins ; a dealer in gold and silver was all over 
perfectly black, except his hands and forehead ; another 
man, in the same place, had a few violets and the most 
beautiful tiny flowers growing out of his shoulders, 
showing that it was only the force of circumstances that 
made him a money-changer — his affections and aspira- 
tions being far different. And thus I examined the 
city of Xew York as it is in the spiritual world, leaving, 
as you may well imagine, hundreds of thousands of 
important observations unrecorded. It was a city of 
lights, clouds and colors. But it is not true that the 
internal or spiritual city is separated from the external 
or natural city by a "discrete degree;" for in very 
truth the outer is not only an evolution and continuation 
of the forces and principles and individualities within, 
but it is through and through one and the same, a legiti- 
mate growth from seed to shell, from the prime-causes 
invisible to the full blown effects which constitute, in 
totality, what is commonly called " ISTew York." And 
yet, if you will adopt the correspondential method, 
accustom your thoughts to think through pictures, alle- 
gories, symbols and secret signs, it becomes as easy as 
" second nature " to look into the internal city and see 
it to be (what, alas ! it is too truly) a hell, where the 



38 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

spirits (the citizens) are in the evils of selfishness, in 
opposition to the " good of truth," refusing to accept 
truth itself, and persisting in living in antagonism " to 
the love of the Lord," which makes the most wretched 
hell that Swedenborg's insight brought to the under- 
standings of mankind ; and it is my conviction that 
Swedenborg was not often enabled to employ the fac- 
ulty of clairvoyance, but instead, that it was his belief 
(as it was his experience) that when the spiritual de- 
gree of the mind is opened and conjoined with the 
spiritual world, which is within the external or natural 
world, whatever by impression or by correspondential 
interpretation forced itself, as to its qualities and uses, 
upon his understanding and into his will, became 
thereby and fixedly a vision of heaven or of hell, even 
into detail, as I have illustrated by what was distinctly 
visible in the interior of ISTew York. 



SKEPTICISM. 

A CAUSE OF TRUE PROGRESS IN KNOWLEDGE. 

Exemption from doubt would prostrate enterprise 
and destroy the mainspring of imagination, whose first- 
born is curiosity, whose handmaidens are investigation, 
experiment and achievement, resulting in universal 
progress. All that man can know for certain is what 
has been, and what is, and of these only items and 
fragments ; for his mind is not capable of comprehend- 



SKEPTICISM. 39 

ing the whole of either past or present, even in his own 
little world. " I know that I know that I am," is the 
Alpha and Omega of certainty. 

Doubt, which means uncertainty, is the mind's prime 
incentive to activity. The uncertainty of life keeps the 
sonl revolving very near the orbit of its just equilib- 
rium ; it is the ballast in the hold, which saves the ves- 
sel from going over in a storm. 

Absolute, unquestionable certainty — the self-demon- 
stration and incuriosity of sleepless omniscience — abol- 
ishing all reasonings, crushing all research, destroying 
all possibility of surprise and emotion, is happily im- 
possible to human nature. Some Orthodox poet (Pol- 
lok, I believe) professed to find comfort in certainty at 
the Day of Judgment. " The good man," he wrote, 
" knew, in very truth, that he was saved to all eternity, 
and feared no more ; while the bad man had proof com- 
plete that he was damned forever ; and believed entirely, 
that on every wicked soul anguish would come, and 
wrath, and utter woe." But then, we must remember 
that Orthodox Christians have a genins for draw- 
ing comfort from wells into which a reasonable and 
refined person would not even let down an " old oaken 
bucket." 

What shall we say ? Do not spiritual communica- 
tions make certain the immortality of the soul ? Does 
walking a mile into the country give you certain knowl- 
edge of the contents of every other mile around the 
globe ? Of future existence for you, let us agree that 
spiritual intercourse is a demonstration. But can im- 
mortality of your own special memory and private con- 
sciousness be rendered certain by any proof short of 



40 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

the absolute living of an immortal life % * Doubt, at 
this juncture, is the mother of fresh thought and investi- 
gation. Imagination, which is the seer of the intellect- 
ual faculties, now spreads its wings for another flight 
into immensity. From the realm of uncertainty will now 
come back a flock of birds of paradise. Hope, Aspira- 
tion, Yearning, Prayer ! These are faithful life-pre- 
servers for the groping millions — while to the thinking 
few, there are the faithful safeguards of Mature, Reason, 
Intuition, Philosophy. 

Thus, in a universe of doubt and uncertainty, the 
great army of fools and philosophers jog along side by 
side ; no one quite knowing exactly in his own mind 
the critical spot where the fool ceases and the philoso- 
pher begins. 



EMANATIONS. 

AN ATMOSPHERE AROUND EVERYTHING. 

Every principle wears appropriate garments. The 
life within the blood, like the sensation within the 
nerves, puts on an armor of many-colored atmospheres, 
compounded of particles derived from the constitution 
within, as grass grows out of the soil, or hair upon the 
head. These particles, which form an atmosphere about 
a person, are pleasing or repulsive, and can be detected 
by animals like horses and dogs, and more especially 
and certainly by impressible sensitives called mediums. 

* I have treated the question of "proof" fully in the G-t. Har., 
vol. v., part iii. 



APOTHEOSIS. 41 

It is this aura, going before a person or trailing along 
the path the feet have pressed, which makes it possible 
for the bloodhound to track the slave, the fond dog to 
find his master, or for you to realize when a particular 
acquaintance is near your house, or for two silent per- 
sons to think the same thought at the same moment. 
There is a great reality in this atomic emanation about 
a person, which, in progress of science, will lead to 
great discoveries and social revolutions. It may do far 
more than the ten commandments to regulate the mar- 
riage relation and the production of children. Real 
individuality and spiritual status can be accurately 
ascertained by the aural atmosphere which, in spite of 
either wish or will, surrounds a person, preceding and 
following him everywhere he goes and under all circum- 
stances, indicating and analyzing him as completely as 
words can impart an idea to the mind. 



APOTHEOSIS. 

THE ELEVATION OF MEN TO THE ESTATE OF GODS. 

Feom time immemorial, because taught instinctively 
by the indwelling oracles of Intuition, mankind have 
believed that actual death was impossible to any wise 
and good man. The early Christians (i. e., the Eoman 
Catholics, and afterwards their lineal descendants, the 
English Episcopalians) believed that the great and good, 
both women and men, went to dwell in Paradise with 



42 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR EEY. 

God. But ages before the Christian Era it was a com- 
mon faith that above the skies, in the temple and before 
the throne of the Deity, the noble, the wise, the heroic 
and the virtuous lived and watched over the great family 
of man, and especially worked in behalf of those on 
earth, who believed and worshipfully regarded them. 

Christians of to-day profess to regard all this as so 
much superstition ; and yet they have a religion that 
teaches exactly this " superstition ; " which is only a 
doctrine in the Churches, but which is a demonstrated 
familiar fact among Spiritualists. The time was, says 
a writer, when " it became common among superstitious 
and passionate people for lovers to raise altars to their 
mistresses, and parents to their children." But it may, 
with great logical propriety, be asked : What mean 
these monumental displays in our modern cemeteries ? 
What is a church but an altar erected to and named 
after some departed good man, or beloved woman ? 
Yonder is a holy establishment called " St. Paul's." 
Just up the avenue you see " St. Ann's Church." Who 
does not fancy the old apostle, with a possible degree 
of ungodly pride in his heart, looking over heaven's 
high wall at " St. Peter's, in Rome " % All around you 
are costly and beautiful altars dedicated to personages 
who have experienced what in ancient times was called 
apotheosis. There is " St. John's Cathedral," which is 
a graceful architectural monument. But what do you 
think of that immense structure called " The Church of 
the Holy Redeemer " % More ambitious altar-builders, 
who dislike being on the fence in the expression of their 
preferences, come squarely out and say, this is " Christ's 
Church." Yery uncertain disciples concerning the 



PRIMITIVE BELIEVERS. 43 

" apotheosis " of their favorite saints, with one bound 
jump the mystic chasm, give all inferior deities a re- 
spectful slip, and christen their sanctuary " The Church 
of the Holy Unity." Imagination alone can reach the 
possible feelings of " St. Thomas " under this slight. 

But Spiritualists, although accepting the whole truth 
of apotheosis, yet save themselves an enormous expen- 
diture of labor and capital. They rationally regard the 
circumstances of the other world as quite as comfortable 
as this ; that persons, who have experienced the celes- 
tial promotion, do not need material altars erected to 
them, nor religious ceremonies performed either for 
their benefit or ours ; and, lastly, that the virtuous and 
the truly great, who as spirits and angels dwell above 
the earth, are chiefly interested in aiding mankind's 
growth toward universal peace and harmony. Thus a 
rational religion is not only practical, but it is also just 
as to the requirements of the past and the present, and 
with respect to the future an unparalleled economy ! 



PKIMITIYE BELIEVEKS. 

SPIRITUALISTS OF THE FIRST CENTURY. 

Ax Oriental Spiritualist, or (as some writers prefer) 
Pj'thagorean Philosopher, named Apollonius, lived 
about the commencement of the Christian dispensation. 
He was actively engaged in disputing with the learned 
doctors, in performing (so-called) supernatural cures 
among the people, and in teaching Spiritualism like one 



44 -SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

having heaven-ordained authority. He ate no animal 
food ; discarded woollen clothes ; wore very long hair, 
and combed it ; washed his face ; kept his body sweet ; 
refused to associate with women, lived single, therefore, 
like Jesus, and the Shakers and Catholic Priests ; 
opposed all sacrificial offerings as evil and corrupting ; 
did not think much of oral prayer ; proclaimed the 
perishableness of all material possessions ; was an 
original teacher in religion, loaded with eloquence and 
attractive free speech ; in short, he urged the precepts 
of truth, honor, equity, personal purity and universal 
education. 

In those days, a spiritually illuminated mind was un- 
derstood to be a miracle. An Apollonius, a Pythagoras, 
a bright Spiritualist who lived in a superior mood, who 
could suddenly perform a magnetic or a psychologic 
cure, was believed to be either a god, or the son of a 
god, or else a veritable Beelzebub, the prince of devils. 
But, happily, we live in an age which is more of a mir- 
acle than all the mysteries of all the religions of the 
world combined — an era of Reason and Liberty, op- 
posed to superstition, but hospitable to what is deemed 
the universally Natural^ which is found to contain 
everything that is good and true in every creed that 
ever existed inside or outside of Christendom. 



MISSIONARIES. 45 



MISSIONARIES. 

THE APOSTLES OF A NEW GOSPEL. 

The phrase apostle signifies one who is sent, like a 
delegate or missionary, to perform some special service. 
It is usually employed in connection with the system 
called Christianity. 

This mixed system was originated by the apostles ; 
and not, as is so generally believed, by the spiritually 
minded son of Joseph and Mary. Christianity, for this 
very reason, has been, from the first, an inconsistent 
compound of elements spiritual and temporal, a curious 
admixture of the supernatural with the simple and 
common ; with teachings both attractive and repulsive 
to Judaism on the one hand, and to the Gentiles on the 
other. It was the desire of the apostles to render 
Christianity comprehensible and congenial to both 
sides of the world — to the Jews, who were looking for 
a Messiah in the line of David, and to the Gentiles, 
who wanted to start free of Moses and the prophets. 
Paul was the most influential " apostle to the Gentiles." 
The earlier apostles were anxious to Judaize the teach- 
ings of Christianity, or rather, to compromise enough 
to convert the Jews. In order to throw the gos23el net 
around the hard-headed Israelites", it was important to 
preach and exalt Jesus as the real, originally promised 
Messiah. But the spiritual illumination of John 
enabled him to perceive and to render Jesus in a new 



46 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

light. In continuation of Paul's philosophical interpre- 
tation, John's spiritualized perceptions caused him to 
conceive the idea that the crucified One was an intimate 
of God, that he was the very " Word that was made 
flesh ; " which conception, to both Jews and Gentiles, 
as well as to people generally, even to this hour, is an 
incomprehensible mysticism. This conception of John, 
in its very essence, is nothing but a reappearance in 
religion of the Messianic idea — another manifestation 
of " the Arabula ; " which is the saving Principle from 
the Most High; the anointed in the spiritual sense; 
the spirit of holiness, goodness, and parity ; a religious 
mystery known only to and by the spirit, a transcen- 
dental, spiritual consciousness, taught as a cardinal 
truth from God by the Essenes, a sect of pure believers 
and celibates, among whom Jesus spent some of the 
best years of his life. (It will be remembered that he 
was preaching and healing the sick, or practicing his 
precepts, only about three years before he was executed 
by the Jews.) 

There are, however, apostles of the Spirit, and truly 
inspired missionaries of the Truth, in all countries and 
among all sects. But by this I do not mean exclusively 
apostles of Christianity, or of any other system organ- 
ized into a form of dogma and doctrine. For it would 
be easier to show that a matter is perfectly consistent 
with Christianity than to prove it to be the truth. I 
would rather have one truth than a thousand texts to 
establish its identity' with Christianity. So should- we 
welcome and sustain the apostles of progress and re- 
form — the advance guards and heroic pioneers of any 
new statement or discovery — for, by so doing, we take 



AUTHORITIES. 



47 



sides with humanity as did Confucius and Jesus, and as 
do all sincere natures who see and love truth as a reve- 
lation from God to the understanding. 



AUTHOEITIES. 

FOR THE GUIDANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 

"When there is too much familiarity and fraternal 
equality between officers and soldiers, there is a propor- 
tional amount of laxity in the discipline, and a very 
general disobedience of orders. An authority inspiring 
respect and insisting upon prompt obedience to the 
word of command, is absolutely indispensable. The 
individuality of the men — their personal pride, their 
private tastes, their great individual respectability in 
social life, their superior education, their dignity and 
weight of character — all is totally immersed in the 
supreme authority. Without such authority, and with- 
out such total self-abnegation of the persons voluntarily 
associated for a purpose, there could exist no effective 
cooperation. "Without it, no ship could ever be sailed, 
no factory run, no government founded, no church 
organized. 

But the philosopher detects the evils which accom- 
pany this necessary obedience to centralized chieftain- 
ship. The integral rights of individuals are more and 
more trampled down. The supremacy and success of 
the organization are exalted and proclaimed as of para- 



48 SEQUEL TO THE STELLER KEY. 

mount importance. Individuals exist and die for the 
institution; not the institution for individuals. Out- 
raged and enslaved individuals, with their private sen- 
sibilities disregarded every hour, and their most sacred 
desires and aspirations systematical! y offended and 
crushed, at last discover that " corporations have no 
souls." Revolt and revolution, resulting in a new or- 
ganization, and regulated by new forms of authority, 
are natural historical developments. And so, for a 
period, the constituents are satisfied, and the new de- 
parture is victorious. 

In religion, men call these changes " a new dispensa- 
tion." Think of the progress of mankind before the 
era of Moses ! Arts, agriculture, science, society, 
morals, governments — all wonderfully flourishing un- 
der the sun in Egypt, in Persia, in Babylon, in Chaldea. 
And yet, with the authority of a heavenly sovereign, 
Moses, with the exception of the book of Genesis, re- 
jected all the religious authorities and all the sacred 
Scriptures which existed anywhere in the world at his 
time. He seemed to perceive enough cosmological and 
historical truth in Genesis to entitle it to a place in the 
new collection of Scriptures which would in time be 
written. 

This was a radical revolt. It resulted in revolution, 
in wars, in horrible conflicts between the Pagan nations 
and the Jewish followers of Moses and the prophets. 
Who authorized the great lawgiver to reject and ac- 
cept % Who gave him power to invalidate one popular 
authority, and to enhance and augment -the authority of 
that which was unpopular ? Was Mosaism a finality ? 
Did that one dispensation under him comprehend and 



AUTHORITIES. 4:9 

embody for all future ages the intentions and ways of 
God to mankind ? 

Let us see. The Jews had among them many very 
learned doctors of divinity. Their sacerdotal scholars, 
their divinely appointed prophets, their chief scribes 
and God-ordained rulers had written many sacred 
scriptures. Things were getting into shape to stay for- 
ever. The whole body of doctrine had been declared. 
All laws, all ceremonies, all things good and acceptable 
in the sight of Jehovah, had been with infinite labor 
written down in books, and were possessed of transcen- 
dent authority. 

But just at this comfortable hour a man called 
" Jesus " was announced. He entered at once into the 
wholesale business of a new dispensation. He treated 
the Jews according to the principle which they had 
applied to the Pagan authorities. He authoritatively 
accepted (i. e., he did not peremptorily reject) the few 
books accredited to Moses and to the foremost prophets ; 
but he repudiated without compromise all the Jewish 
sectarianisms and all the religious writings of their 
highest sacerdotal authorities ! 

This was repudiation on a grand scale. It was re- 
volt in the religious world ; it brought not peace, but a 
sword ; it was radical revolution ; another new dispen- 
sation. Conflicts countless have resulted ; and sects 
swarm throughout Christendom. But there is a Bible ! 
Here (in the Scriptures) you think you find the whole 
body of doctrine. Here you think you read all the 
heavenly laws, all the essential commandments, all 
that is necessary for mankind to know of God, of im- 
mortality, and of the way of salvation. Indeed ! Are 
3 



50 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

you quite certain that nothing more is needed % Has 
an unchangeable God, who has from the first been 
manifested successively in new and still newer dispen- 
sation — has He changed f Has he reversed the order 
and method of His unreversible mind ? Has He al- 
tered in the very heart of immutability ? 

We shall see. Spiritualism was suddenly announced. 
It enters, and at once begins business. With unques- 
tioning authority it repudiates all sects and all systems ; 
Pagan, Jewish, Christian, together with the authorities 
they claim for their sacred books — all equally rejected 
and invalidated ! This is exceedingly hard upon 
the Christians ; even as Jesus was hard upon the 
Jews ; even as Moses was hard upon the great authori- 
ties of Paganism. It means revolution — a revolt in 
the camp of sects ; it means another new dispensation. 
But the war will continue. Spiritualism cannot be the 
final statement ; not the complete authority. Phases 
of religious truth are lights set upon the hills of human 
progress ; beacon-lights to humanity, embodying great 
accumulations of inspiration and experience: but the 
same beacons cannot always burn ; new lamps will be 
lighted in newly-constructed towers upon the walls of 
Zion. 



CEKEMONIES. 

OLD FORMS IN A NEW COUNTRY. 

It is because Nature is system, order, rotational and 
repetitional, that mankind find themselves inclined to 



CEREMONIES. 51 

forms and systematic proceedings. " We come honestly 
by it." 

But many formulas and ostentatious ceremonies never 
appear among the refined and truly cultured, either in 
society or religion. A commanding intellect and a 
noble heart have little fellowship with artificial distinc- 
tions and high-sounding titles. A deep thinker soon 
finds the limitations of speech. A thought that is not 
too profound for ceremony is superficial, and of little 
account. A profoundly grateful and loving heart is 
slow in verbal prayer and exquisitely delicate in profes- 
sions. Manners are superior to ceremonies. The first 
flow out of the spirit ; the latter from education. An- 
cient nations were nothing unless ceremonial. Chinese 
and Japanese continue to this day many of the extreme 
social and religious demonstrations practised hundreds 
of generations ago. Mahometans, Brahmins, Buddhists, 
Roman Catholics, and Modern American Episcopalians, 
are brim full of dignitary titles and contemptible dis- 
tinctions. They can do nothing without precedent and 
ceremony. A certain circumlocutory service, a barbarian 
genuflectional etiquette, is deemed solemnly attractive 
and indispensable. Religious chieftains can do nothing 
without mysterious forms. The creed of their institution 
the ministers gladly leave to the theologians to analyze 
and quarrel over; but the traditional rites and ceremo- 
nial observances of their church they maintain and obey 
with pomp and circumstantiality ; knowing full too well 
that the ignorant multitude is drawn and held by empty 
show, parade and display, however cold and unfeel- 
ing, while intellectual substance and real spiritual merit 
would be unrecognized and passed by in stupid silence. 



52 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

All this is characteristic of countries with titled no- 
bility, where there are castes and arbitrary distinctions, 
plebeians and patricians, poor and rich, goats and sheep, 
subjects and kings, the common people ruled by aristo- 
crats. " Religious "organizations and ceremonial obser- 
vances correspond, in all such countries, with the struc- 
ture of government and the form of the social organism. 
Because, to tell the truth, the Church of any country is 
a reflection, not the leader and the instructor, as it 
should be, of the social state and legal conditions of the 
people. But here, in free-thinking, progressive, pre- 
eminently democratic America ! here, in the beautiful 
Utopia of mental freedom and free schools ! here, in 
the paradise of peers and self-supporting sovereigns ! 
here, in the land of religious liberty unbounded, and of 
political progress without end ! here, where the arts 
and sciences prosper, where philosophy is blossoming 
into spirituality, where poetry and general literature 
have inspiration and readers without measure — here, in 
such a country, and amid this equal distribution of 
every essential blessing, how absurd, how uncalled-for, 
how backward-looking and criminally weak, to surround 
true Religion, pure and undefiled, with the services 
and ceremonies derived from the age of mythology ! 
And yet, notwithstanding the absurdity and criminal 
weakness, look about you ; see, in all the wealthy, aristo- 
cratic churches, the memorial services and parade of 
processions peculiar to ancient periods — " customs gray 
with ages grown," causing the philosopher to stop and 
ask, " Where am I ?" " Is this fair Utopian America % " 
" Do I live in the nineteenth, or in the ninth 
century % " 



CHERUBIM. 53 

And yet we can do nothing without manners and 
forms. If these are bad, how repulsive ; if graceful, 
how attractive and pleasing. What is the law ? Here 
is the answer : The more the substance, the less 
show ; the greatness of Truth renders the littleness of 
forms contemptible ; downright reality and substantial 
merit drive out the devils of dress and display ; just as 
a true diamond is most beautiful when set in plain 
black, with a fine thread of pure gold running round 
the edge of the ring. 

True refinement in religion, as in the civil realm of 
life, will wear the fewest possible forms. 



CHERUBIM. 



MEANING OF THE WORD. 



This was the name given by the ancient Jews to any 
guardian influence belonging to the celestial system of 
government. Sometimes it signifies a spirit, next to a 
seraph in importance ; but in general use the term 
stands for an emblem of hierarchical authority. 

Let us take a like liberty, and employ this word to 
signify wisdom. Let us put into his hand a flaming 
sword, and station him at the entrance of society. 

Do not the gates of our Eden need watching and 
guarding ? Within them you behold a corpulent, selfish 
Eve, manifesting grossness and cruelty to her servants, 
stupid indifference to the development of her children, 



54 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR ~KJEY. 

spending her vitality on dress, novels, parade, and a 
pampered appetite. There, too, you see a rotund old 
Adam, bringing on premature decrepitude, accumulat- 
ing wealth in every land, exhausting his great energies 
in laying the foundations for protracted lawsuits among 
his heirs, and in destroying what little happiness cir- 
cumstances may perchance bring within his life. Let 
a cherubim be stationed at the great garden gate, with 
naming sword, instructed to drive out these fallen par- 
ents, and to preserve the paths and fruit trees for the 
good angels who are surely coming. 



THE PHYSICAL OEGANISM. 

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE HUMAN BODY. 

The human body is the perishable chariot of fire by 
which the spirit is individualized, and in which the 
spirit rides through the world. Fire in the lungs keeps 
the blood boiling; fire in the heart keeps the blood 
throbbing ; fire in the blood keeps the passions and ap- 
petites bubbling; fire in the nerves keeps the brain 
blazing ; fire in the brain keeps the whole house warm 
and inhabitable, in all climates, and preserves the whole 
establishment against the ten thousand fire-extinguish- 
ers which continually threaten individual existence. 
The only genuine fire-proof armor is health. A sick 
person is liable to combustion and sudden destruction 
from fevers, inflammations, and corruptions, which are 



CHEERFULNESS. 55 

only different consuming fires in different parts of the 
house. All persons who are thus slowly burning to 
death in the presence of their dearest friends, may be 
said to be paying a high rent for a poor, dissolving habi- 
tation. No blasphemy is more ungodly than a con- 
scious transgression against the laws of rudimental life 
and health. Such a person is irreligious, although he 
may fulfil all the rules of his church as to prayers, 
Bible-reading, and obey every known formula of piety 
and worship. 



CHEERFULNESS. 

AN ALE-HEALING MEDICINE. 

Some one has well said that " cheerfulness is a duty." 
The discharge ,of this essential duty should be obliga- 
tory upon all mankind. The existence and inculcation 
of a " religion of despair " in the world will account for 
a vast deal of human sadness. For who can smile, yea, 
who dare so far forget the true sympathies of his heart 
as to be glad for a moment about anything, when the 
preacher positively tells him that only about one person in 
a hundred millions ever reaches the kingdom of eternal 
bliss? How dare an Orthodox minister wreathe his 
mouth with smiles ? In his Christian scheme he teaches 
that, since the "tidings of great joy" were first heard, 
countless hosts of human hearts have died without being 
"converted;" and that each of these thronging mil- 
lions has gone under the everlasting " wrath of God " 
into a hell of endless suffering ! He smile ? Yea, how 



56 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

dare any sincere believer in such a " religion of despair " 
venture to be glad, or indulge an emotion of joy even 
for a brief moment? For the credit of human nature, 
let it be recorded that those who sincerely believe these 
unutterable doctrines are never cheerful, and do not, 
because they have not sufficient indifference of heart to, 
smile from morning till night. They are always sad, 
because they are partially insane ! 

But while writing these few sentences, the birds of 
the air sing cheerfully, and the whole earth is throbbing 
with gladness. Cheerfulness is a cardinal principle in 
true religion. Not frivolity, not silliness of conduct 
and idiotic gabble, but cheerfulness, thankfulness, and 
robust happiness. The setting sun, the beginning of 
winter, the decline of rudimental life, are, to the truly 
religious and healthy, as beautiful and cheerful as are 
the rising sun, the opening of summer, or the birth of a 
babe in the beautiful morn of spring-time. 

Cheerfulness, believe me, is an all-healing medicine 
prepared in the laboratory of the gods. Disease, Ad- 
versity, Death — these fertile sources of human suffering 
vanish under the magic spell of cheerfulness. It illu- 
mines and sends gladness through the darkest chambers 
of the solitary heart. But beware of persons who can 
be jovial only when stimulated and magnetized by ex- 
citement ; beware of those who continually assail you 
with flippant tricks and interrupt you with small talk; 
for such know really nothing of true cheerfulness. 
They are given to hours of that terrible wretchedness 
and despair which is the lot of the unredeemed, and 
may at any moment ruthlessly break the golden bowl at 
the sacred fountain of your happiness. 



ORIGIN OF FAMILIES. 57 



ORIGIN OF FAMILIES. 

FOLLIES IN GENEALOGICAL TREES 

Genealogical trees usually flourish most luxuriantly 
in poor soil. It is hazardous to sound the stream of 
families. The source is frequently too near the dis- 
coveries of Darwin. Family and personal pride, rest- 
ing on the foundation of ancestors, is destitute of princi- 
ple. It is well, for scientific ends, to look into the 
past, as it may be justifiable in order to settle property 
questions in dispute, but never to establish one's title to 
respectability. Let blood " tell " in present merit, not 
in reputation and success of a long-departed progeni- 
tor. 

The investigations of anthropologists have already 
exposed the flimsy foundations of family genealogies. 
Manhood is preceded by youth and childhood, and the 
whole superstructure rests on infancy and the proto- 
plastic cells of yet earlier months ; so the present races 
of the human family come from barbarians and savages, 
our only ancestors in the far past, about whom the least 
that is said the better, except for the advancement of 
science and the equal distribution of common sense. 

The time is coming when to be known as the descen- 
dant of so-called " nobility " will be as much of a dis- 
grace as to be known as one who "never worked." 
To be received in society as worthy because of those 
who bore you, is as false in principle as to expect a 



58 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

situation in paradise because of your belief in the cate- 
chism's definition of a redeemer. False foundations are 
crumbling before the Darwinian army ; and woe to all 
family pride and ancestral trees which pray for recog- 
nition and fresh fertilization. There's a long spine 
within the constitution of animal life — an extension of 
vertebrae far down in the back of human history — which 
is too remote from the head of the race to admit of 
fashionable adornments. This great rear organization, 
to speak candidly, is the main root of your ancestral 
tree. Humility begins with this fundamental discovery, 
made partially palatable by the scriptures of Wallace, 
and subsequently strongly enforced by the facts of Dar- 
win, that 

' ' There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them as we may." 

Ancestral halls begin to smell mouldy, because the 
minute animal formations of progress are creeping out 
from the stale blood of royal families. It will soon be 
more essential to have a character than to have had a 
regal grandmother. I think personal excellence will 
pass for more than the received opinion that you are 
really the son of your own father. It is now vexatious 
to proud persons to be referred to as the husband of the 

celebrated Madame G T ; or as the wife of the 

distinguished General W J ; because individ- 
ualized existence and intrinsic merit have steadily 
appreciated in value, until the long-looked-for right has 
come " uppermost," compelling the pride of ancestry to 
die " amid its worshippers." 



MORALS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 59 



MOKALS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 

STOICISM. 

Eighteen hundred years ago, one of Nero's guards, 
Epaphroditus, had a slave whose name was Epictetus. 
His cruel physical circumstances acted upon his intel- 
lectual and intuitive faculties as the wine-press acts 
upon grapes. " Patience, perseverance, brotherly kind- 
ness and charity " — these four cardinal Christian virtues 
poured out from his entire life. 

Plato, Socrates,. Seneca, Epictetus, Antoninus, al- 
though not engaged in prophesying of and clearing the 
way for the popular religion (which was developed 
by the Apostles, not by Jesus), were nevertheless re- 
markable teachers and practitioners of every important- 
principle or precept that can be found in Christianity. 
The Komans were not philosophers ; they were only 
intellectualists ; fond of knowing all that could be 
known in metaphysics. They were constitutional eclec- 
tics in their independent philosophical inquiries ; and 
by temperament wilfully stoical in all matters pertain- 
ing to religion. How to get best and justly and 
triumphantly through the world, was the ethical and 
philosophical question in the Roman mind. 

" Bear and forbear," replied Epictetus ; and his life 
was a complete illustration of his doctrine. 

" Learn to be one man," said he ; and the absence of 
all doubleness in his own character and conduct was 



60 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

remarkable. "No man can serve two masters," is 
another way of expressing the same idea. The Roman 
intellect was inevitably fatalistic in religion and morals. 
Their distinct perception of law in everything impress- 
ed their judgment with a belief in inexorable Fate. 
Epictetus had spiritual illumination superior to his era, 
but his chief desire was to teach the Romans how to live. 
Duty was never surpassed by the pride of personal 
rights. Every one's duty was to strive to love virtue, 
truth, honor, and to daily practise what he knew to be 
required by these radical precepts and principles. 

This system was perfect as a rule of faith and prac- 
tice ; but it lacked what a beautiful landscape lacks in 
a cloudy day, namely, light from the sun in the heav- 
ens. In our century this light, emitted by a resplen- 
dent sun in a sky far more interior, is shining upon 
mankind. Let us live and love, in harmony with our 
superlatively superior advantages. It will be a wonder- 
fully happy and pure epoch when mankind shall prac- 
tically embody the immortal teachings of Epictetus. 



INNATE JUSTICE. 

A PRINCIPLE IN THE MENTAL CONSTITUTION. 

Men take a natural pride in being in the right, or 
rather, they wish to be believed as though they were 
true and reliable, even if the facts be otherwise. This 
innate passion for accuracy is prophetic of the com- 
ing excellence in human nature. The non-fulfilment 



INNATE JUSTICE. 61 

of a prediction, as in the case of Jonah, even when the 
prophecy covers great disasters and suffering, is a source 
of vexation and disappointment. Such a prophet is 
angry and mortified, first, because the information com- 
municated was inaccurate ; next, because the prediction 
was in its every word erroneous ; next, because the peo- 
ple would laugh at him for making the proclamation : 
lastly, because the failure throws a doubt over the entire 
profession of foretelling future events. Few men can 
bear the imputation of ignorance and dishonesty. They 
would rather be knowing and accurate than kind or 
good. This state is savage and cruel. But there is in 
time coming a sure progress into truth and right, 
founded upon a sincere love of what is intrinsically just 
and permanent. 

Self-made men, as the saying is, are persons who 
have " worked their own way," through greatest obsta- 
cles to a position of equality with the best. They are 
usually possessed of a sound article of conscience — self- 
made, like the rest of the character — which is not often 
obedient to popular standards. These are the minds 
who promote the world's progress. They institute new 
laws, inculcate new morals, generate new maxims, and 
fill the air with new revelations of truth and principles. 

But all manufactured men inherit consciences to corre- 
spond. Their ideas of right coincide exactly with the 
prevailing definition of right. If they be Jews by birth, 
it is right to under-rate the Christians ; if Christians by 
birth, it is equally right to oppose and berate the Jews. 
If they be born in slaveholding countries, it is right to 
perpetuate slavery ; if freedmen by birth, it is right to 
pronounce eternal condemnation upon slaveholders. If 



62 SEQUEL TO THE STELLAR KEY. 

born into the lap of Roman Catholicity, it is right to 
curse and destroy all dissenters as enemies of God ; if 
born among hot-blooded Protestants, it is right to slander 
the ancient church by calling it the " whore of Babylon." 
Thus, all through and through the world, what men 
call " conscience " is a manufactured article, an inheri- 
tance, like the color of their hair and eyes, and as blind 
as learned ignorance always is as to what is in reality 
right and wrong. 

And yet, deeper than all transmitted qualities and 
bias, is intuition ; of which Washington said : " Labor 
to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial, 
fire called Conscience." This innate wisdom is beneath 
every man's inherited ideas of right and wrong. It is a 
dangerous power in the spirit. You cannot reason it 
down to death. After a prolonged silence, it arises in 
its own might, and by its internal condemnation makes 
a strong man feeble. When inspired by its approba- 
tion, one man can put ten thousand to flight. One man 
with a clear intuition of Right on his side is sustained 
as by the strong arm of Omnipotence. It is important, 
therefore, to know whether your views of right and 
wrong arrived with your blood, or from the fountain of 
all spirit — the infinite source of every good and perfect 

gift. 



VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME, 



CHAPTER I. 

A GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE SYSTEM. 

** My Father's house is built on high, 
Far, far amid the starry sky ; 
When from this earthly body free, 
That heavenly mansion mine shall be." 

A sublime and beautiful theme appropriately seeks 
to clothe itself in sublime and beautiful language. 

A powerful temptation to write in "an unknown 
tongue" upon a theme unknown to the senses of men, 
is upon me ; it feels like a necessity pouring through 
the wand of an enchanter. And yet, lest I should not 
be distinctly understood by the reader, who may not 
have access to a dictionary, I press back both the neces- 
sity and the enchantment ; and thus I proceed to use 
the plainest words, or at least such phraseology as will 
most naturally convey the sublime and beautiful reali- 
ties under contemplation. And I will also, which will 
soon come, disregarding all temptations to the contrary, 
add to my intentional plainness as much as possible of 
the sweet grace of brevity. Inasmuch as in the u Pene- 
tralia," p. 167, in the " Stellar Key," but particularly 



66 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

in the little volume " Death and the After-Life," the 
reader may find that already I have reported or de- 
scribed many of these celestial scenes ; therefore it will 
be with me a principle to avoid, as far as is practicable, 
when treating an obscure question, a multiplication of 
words and all vain repetitions.* 

That there is a general correspondence between man 
and the earth, is admitted by all analogical thinkers. Like 
the globe, man is full of revolutions, seasons, changes, 
periodicities. In his wakings and sleepings are incor- 
porated the days and nights of the planet ; its light and 
heat are repeated in his phosphorescent brain and mag- 
netic heart; its rocky framework is perfectly repre- 
sented in his osseous structure, and its great waters 
reappear in the miniature seas of serum and tiny oceans 
of blood in which man's physical constitution rides like 
a freighted steamer. 

In more interior parts the correspondence between 
the human individual and the great globe beneath him 
is a million times more amazing and complete. In his 
physiological inception, as well as in all the stages of 
his subsequent progressive advancement, he repeats the 
entire organic history of the whole animal world ; and 
in his social, moral, and intellectual progress, from 
youth to maturity, he consecutively reproduces the 
entire social, political, moral, and intellectual history 
of mankind. All this, you observe, transpires in the 
universal, not in the very particular sense. For in 

* These references to other volumes, for the purpose of avoiding 
repetitions, may possibly entail some obscurity on the points too 
briefly treated in these pages. The industrious reader will therefore 
seek the passages referred to. 



A GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE SYSTEM. 67 

specialties, in the details of experiment among varia- 
tions, all deductive correspondence ceases and the in- 
ductive philosophy begins ; and the latter is commonly 
called " scientific research and demonstration." 

Upon the primordial principle of correspondence, 
thus briefly illustrated, there exists a general resem- 
blance, a similarity of order and appearance, between 
the Winterland (earth) beneath man's feet and the 
Summerland (heaven) above his head. 

In a certain sense there is no more distance between 
a man's spirit and the earth than there is between his 
spiritual body (now elemental) and the suprasolar sphere 
to which he personally ascends after death. And as to 
the localities, sceneries, social gradations, moral spheres, 
love circles, intellectual distinctions, wisdom brother- 
hood, seminaries of learning, hospitalities for the worn 
and weary, unfolding nurseries for the innumerable 
little ones, all of which is distinctly visible as natural 
belongings and institutions in the Summerland; the 
correspondence (the analogy) between all this and man 
is seen to be perfect when you carefully investigate and 
classify the internal structure of the human brain, and 
thence gather inductively knowledge of his organs, 
faculties, attributes, affections, the degrees of his vari- 
ous interconnections, and the laws of his immortal 
necessities, his absolute needs, not to mention his wants 
and energetic impulses, which constantly and forever 
characterize and govern his indestructible nature. 

The underlying principle is the unchangeable prin- 
ciple of " like producing like " — illustrated, broadly, in 
the likeness which exists between man's external struc- 
ture and the globe on which he lives ; which likeness 



68 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

is repeated, on a scale at least a million times more 
perfect, between man's internal nature and the external 
of the Summerland wherein he is certain soon to jour- 
ney and reside. 

There is also some very faint resemblance between 
the external surfaces of the superior inhabited planets 
in our solar system and the geographical and topographi- 
cal facts of the great Second Sphere under considera- 
tion. But it is an error to suppose that the Second 
Sphere is but a repetition of this exceedingly rudimen- 
tal world, even on a higher and far more extended 
scale ; because it is in the first place impossible that 
Mother Nature should exactly repeat herself, and, in 
the second place, it is even more impossible that the 
infinitely superior should be a likeness of a most rudi- 
mental inferior, except in the most universal sense, 
which truth I have heretofore attempted to plainly set 
forth. 

The foregoing is properly an introduction to the ful- 
filment of a promise long since made, to write a sequel, 
or Part II., to the volume entitled " A Stellar Key to 
the Summerland." The reader is urgently requested 
to consult Part I., for a more intellectual and extended 
consideration of questions which will be only inspira- 
tionally awakened in these chapters. In this sequel, 
the whole subject will be presented as revelational Yiews 
of Our Heavenly Home ; thus, of necessity, referring 
the reader to other volumes for philosophical reasonings 
and special explanations. 

As in Part I., so also in this Sequel, it is deemed 
beneficial to introduce drawings, so that, in the first 
place, the reader can obtain a conception of the actual 



A GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE SYSTEM. 69 

situation of the great spiritual universe to the visible 
Milky Way ; also, in the second place, so that his intel- 
lect can form some reasonable views concerning rela- 
tive positions, magnitudes, and distances.* 

The* accompanying diagram (No. 1) supposes the 
reader standing far, far in the fields of space. From 
that remote point, and being gifted with the telescopic 
power of observation, he is supposed to be contem- 
plating the immeasurable magnitude, the unutterable 
grandeur, the overwhelming glory and absolutely inde- 
scribable harmoniousness of the scene. You must em- 
ploy your natural telescope from the crown of a glitter- 
ing observatory situated in an abundantly rich star-field 
millions of miles from the earth and the Sun. On 
your journey you should stand for a moment upon 
Herschel's great discovery, Uranus, which rhythmically 
rolls in its silvery orbit, more than eighteen hundred 
millions of miles from its progenitor. Still farther you 
must journey to obtain a knowledge of the field covered 
by the subject before you. Extend your observations 
millions of league into space. Go forth into the bound- 
less wilderness of cometary matter, yea, into the realm 
of unformed and yet perpetually forming suns and 
planets beyond the sixth circle of suns, infinitely far 

* The Milky Way is often referred to by the author as the great 
sixth circle of suns. Strictly speaking-, such is not his meaning. 
Mankind can see but a few of the universes which belong to this 
infinitely expanded outmost system of suns and planets. Speaking 
strictly, then, the "Milky Way" is an irregular and fragmentary 
integer of the sixth system. But owing to the fact that the heav- 
ens are beautifully and conspicuously decorated by the light of the 
great systems which constitute the " Milky Way," therefore the 
author has figuratively employed it as a visible sixth circle. 



70 VIEWS OE OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

beyond wondrous Neptune, the discovery of Leverrier, 
which sweeps through the star-strewn immensity nearly 
three thousand millions of miles from the productive 
sun.* 

From this astronomical station you will observe some- 
thing entirely unlike anything you ever witnessed or 
imagined on earth, when at night you may have con- 
templated the stellar universe. In ordinary language 
you will now obtain a " bird's-eye view " of that 
vast universe of sans, stars, earths, moons, and comets 
which constitute what would be commonly called a 
"Milky Way." Like a universe of clouds this mass of 
worlds and systems of worlds appears to swim over our 
heads (when seen from the standpoint of earth), whilst 
very far below the nebulous galaxy seem to burn our 
particular sun, around which revolve all the bodies of 
the special isolated universe to which our earth belongs. 

Viewed from earth the Milky Way appears to be an 
endless belt. But seen from a remote point in space 
it becomes a member of a group of successive systems 
of solar and stellar universes ; and in that one group of 
systems is located our sun and its harmonious family 
of children, grand-children, and great-grand-children ; 
which by the most ancient astronomers were named 
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn ; to which 
must now be added all the various satellites, including 
the teeming fields of lesser and yet younger bodies 
known as asteroids, comets, and meteorics. 

You will now caution your mind concerning actuali- 

* In regard to these distances astronomers do not agree among 
themselves. A reform is now in process. The author gives only 
approximate distances in round numbers to aid the mind. 



A GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE SYSTEM. 71 

ties or verities ; not to confound them with mere ap- 
pearances. For it was owing to the influence of " ap- 
pearances " that mankind for so many centuries believed 
the earth to be a flat, stationary, immovable mass of 
matter ; around which the entire universe rolled as so 
many servants obedient to the fiat of their centrally en- 
throned sovereign. The revolution of the earth on its 
axis causes an ajppearance which, but for the strictest 
application of mathematics, logarithms, and fluxions, 
would to-day impress everybody to assert that all the 
bright bodies in the firmament rise in the east and set 
in the west. And the revolution of the earth around 
the sun develops an appearance — the reverse of reality 
— that the sun is travelling in and out among the stars. 
Against appearances I am constrained to affirm that 
our sun and our earth, which seem to be detached and 
far removed from fellowship with the Milky Way sys- 
tem, are in reality members of that endless sixth circle 
of suns, which circle is outmost of the present develop- 
ment of the physical stellar universe.* 

Overwhelmed by the vast grandeur of the solar and 
astral universes, the author of the " Celestial Indicator " 
exclaims : " And what shall we say of the countless 
millions of stars, of which number our sun is but one, 

* Readers will recall that the author, in previous volumes, has used 
the term " fifth " for the circle of suns that now he numbers as the 
" sixth." The reason is : The Great Central Sun, which heretofore 
has incorrectly been counted as nothing, being- equivalent in every 
particular to all the infinite systems exterior to it, must now be 
called the first ; thus, there are six circles within the measureless 
realm of embryo worlds, or the cometary sphere which will hence- 
forth be known as the seventh. The sixth circle of suns, therefore, 
includes our sun and its planets. 



72 , VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

all with their respective solar-systems, and then all 
grouped again into star-systems, wheeling probably 
eastward around remote central points of their own 
groups, our system moving, perhaps, around Alcyone (one 
of the Pleiades), but in periodic times too great for our 
comprehension ? Then again, what if these groups are 
combined, and moving around other points in the uni- 
verse, and this is only the threshold of the Great Uni- 
verse ! How vast, then, the creation, and how numberless 
the spirits may be in the spirit- world ! And who can tell 
what countless glories in this science will yet be unfold- 
ed to us, in the new life, for endless ages to come ? " 

The bird's-eye view embodied in the accompanying 
diagram, drawn with reference to imparting an idea of 
the greatest magnitude, involves the necessity of impair- 
ing the impression of a circle of suns and stars. And 
the same remark is applicable to the appearance of the 
Summerland Belt in the diagram. It is represented (or 
should have been represented by the artist) as a slight 
light strip stretching through space horizontally across the 
sky, and beneath the universe of nebula called the Milky 
Way. This appearance, as before said, is a necessity of 
the attempt by diagram to impart the fullest and most 
lasting impression of positions and magnitude. It is 
only possible to represent a strip of the Summerland ; 
and also only a very small section of the sixth circle of 
suns. But the inconceivably immense magnitude of the 
golden belt of our Heavenly Home may be imagined, 
somewhat, by comparing what is seen of it in the dia- 
gram with what is therein represented of the vast 
stretch of the numberless constellations which compose 
the sixth circle of suns. 



A GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE SYSTEM. 73 

You can understandingly and truthfully estimate the 
relative importance of the little dot in the Milky Way 
called " the Earth," by looking to the right, where it is 
located, and contrasting it with the surrounding uni- 
verses of suns, stars, earths, moons, comets, etc., which 
seem to till infinity itself to repletion. Mankind, in 
their pride and sacred mythologies, have called this 
obscure dot " the mighty earth ; " to which the Eternal 
Mind in his great mercy once delegated his " Only Be- 
gotten ! " 

The belt of immortal beauty and harmony is, I repeat, 
within the sixth circle of suns ; because whatever is 
spiritual is of necessity interior, approaching nearer 
and nearer the great central fountain of Ml ; while the 
material is external, sweeping out farther and farther 
from the source of all Spirit. 

In the diagram No. 1, you observe the cosmical and 
cometary (or world-building) bodies are represented 
in their aphelion — that is, in a position farthest from 
the sun-centres about which they circulate ; thus signi- 
fying as well as if some of them were in their perihe- 
lion, the subordinate and superficial part which they 
perform in the grand epic of the Stellar Univercoelum. 

The bodies called " cometary," etc., are represented in 
the diagram by the outermost dots and points. 

You observe vast openings among the constellations — 
airholes, so to speak — in which no bodies are visible. 
These are unlimited seas of celestial magnetism and 
electricity. These will be fully explained in succeeding 
chapters. Interstellar spaces and abysses of emptiness 
are atmospheric cushions between the great solar sys- 
tems, whereby all unnecessary planetary friction is com- 



74 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

pensated, and whereby all impedimentation is rendered 
impossible ; while, as great vital reservoirs, a constant 
supply of celestial electricity and magnetism is fed into 
and perpetually flooded throughout the stupendous 
whole. 

In succeeding chapters I will endeavor more par- 
ticularly to illustrate our sublime and beautiful theme, 
giving more spiritual information in detail; to the end 
that the unspeakable glory and overwhelming grandeur 
of our Heavenly Home may be intellectually compre- 
hended as well as intuitionally anticipated. 

It is of great consequence that we learn all we rea- 
sonably can concerning the present and the future. For 
the silent and sacred hour is fast approaching when 
you, friendly reader ! will be called by a supernal voice 
to cast aside all your earthly possessions, and to " em- 
bark upon the glittering streams ; " to sail forth into 
the vast infinitude with the angel commanders, and with 
officers you may not know, possibly forced to take the 
humble position of a deck hand, or to go " before the 
mast " in the lowest angelic service ; compelled, by the 
beneficent force of a sublime necessity, to rise above 
all terrestrial belongings as " on wings of living light,' ' 
and tranquilly or reluctantly to glide onward and on- 
ward and inward, until your feet press the silvery 
shores of the Summerland — which is a Sphere so great, 
so grand, so glorious — glow T ing with the heat of love and 
with the light of wisdom — that you cannot but bow 
down and worship, and yet it is a world whose appear- 
ances and bestowments and adaptations will be in exact 
accord with what you may be in a condition spiritually 
to perceive, to impart, and to appropriate. 






X Q 2 




FORMATION OF THE MAGNETIC RIVERS. 



CHAPTEE II. 

CONCERNING THE CELESTIAL RIVERS IN SPACE. 

" We'd sail across thy silver seas, 
We'd hear thy streams and murmuring trees, 
We'd feel thy gentle, fragrant breeze, 

Summer-Land, sweet Summer- Land ! " 

—Song by Love M. Willis. 

In this communication it is purposed to treat plainly 
a subject full of celestial effulgence and overflowing 
with harmonious beauty, which has been quite briefly 
alluded to on p. 38, "Death and the After-Life," in 
" Stellar Key," p. 157 ; also in the " Great Harmonia," 
Yol. Y.j p. 414, et seq., namely: Concerning the 
streams and rivers of immensity. 

ISo science of chemistry, no theory of electricity, no 
philosophy of geological development, no system of 
meteorology, no explanation of planetary revolution 
and harmony, can be even approximately complete 
without some definite and practical knowledge concern- 
ing these invisible, yet substantial, elemental circulations 
which exist and labor in the vast upper spaces. 

I have several times observed that, from each of the 
earths in our system, great electrical and magnetic 
rivers flow oat and in, to and fro, like a ceaseless tide ; 
on the soft, golden bosom of which all death-emanci- 
pated men, women, and children float into their celestial 
home ; and by means of which they and all other voy- 
agers may, and do, return again and again, personally, 



CONCERNING THE CELESTIAL RIVERS LN SPACE. 77 

or by representation, or by telegraphic contact, or by 
cerebral and mental impressment. And I have also 
observed (and most of my present statements and facts 
are of recent date), that the Sowings and ebbings of 
these elemental Gulf Streams — those Amazonian rivers, 
which sweep through the upper atmospheres and on- 
ward far away among the interstellar spaces — corre- 
spond, in a general way, to the forward and backward 
movements of the blood, which floats upon currents yet 
more vital, from its governmental centre, the heart, to 
the finest and most remote points, the outermost of the 
human body. Let this perfect analogy, based upon a 
fact inseparable from your daily life, impress itself dis- 
tinctly upon your mind. As the crimson fluid of your 
heart, which is both positive {arterial) and negative 
{venous), and which with corresponding reciprocations 
pulsates to and fro, in and out, throughout the arteries 
and veins of the human body ; so, and upon like prin- 
ciples of motion, and with similar functions, the mag- 
netic and electrical streams of the upper regions start 
from geo-centres (earths) and from helio-centres (suns) 
and flow with every conceivable form of beauty through 
the heavenly atmospheric fields. The directions of 
these streams are as various as are the radial lines from 
a globe, and in numbers they are strictly countless. 
These great living currents promote the refinements 
and assimilations of atoms among the organs (globes) of 
the infinite body of God. They form and flow forth 
between all the solar centres and the inhabited globes 
in space; and thence they stream onward and inward 
into the next great sphere of human existence, which 
we now call the Summerland. 



78 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

Your attention is now asked to a brief consideration 
of this transcendent fact, which is one of the greatest 
wonders of the starry universe, which no astronomer 
has yet seen, because it belongs to the so-called invisi- 
ble ocean of imponderables — a fact, hidden in the phy- 
sical constitution of Nature, which no investigator can 
afford either to neglect or underestimate. For are not 
all men pilgrims % Are they not stopping on earth 
over night as at a wayside inn — their home not being 
the house they for the season occupy ? Nor can any 
man among you afford to underestimate or ridicule 
your fellow-pilgrims. In your scholastic pride, in your 
majestic assurance as fact-adoring scientists, you can 
neither afford to bandage your eyes nor to stuff your 
ears to spiritual facts ; nor can you afford to be absorbed 
by, nor affectedly satisfied with, your own special theo- 
ries, cogitations, and discoveries ; because you have 
already acquired sufficient culture, and because you 
possess enough limited knowledge, to impress your 
judgment with the boundlessness of your ignorance con- 
cerning things and principles which animate and gov- 
ern the surrounding universe of matter and mind. In 
visiting a country for the first time you consult maps 
drawn faithfully by stranger hands, and you also read 
guide-books written by primitive pioneer travellers who 
have braved and shunned the dangers and enjoyed the 
beauty, sublimity, and goodness of the remote region 
which (now that the pathways are all cut and cleared 
for you) you heroically set forth to explore. Incalcula- 
bly more natural and more honest is it, that, not knowing 
anything absolutely essential concerning the splendid 
sublimities of infinitude, you should consult the dia- 



CONCERNING THE CELESTIAL RIVERS IN SPACE. 79 

grams and read the guiding chapters hereby submitted 
to your serious investigation. 

Chemists recently have enumerated sixty-eight ele- 
mentary substances — meaning bodies which are simple, 
not containing anything beside themselves — not capable 
of either alteration or decomposition ; such, for exam- 
ple, as the solids, called gold, iron, sulphur; the fluids, 
known as bromine, mercury, etc. ; and the gases, oxygen, 
hydrogen, nitrogen, etc. But with the development of 
scientific knowledge, is gradually being born the idea 
that there are a very few elementary substances — not 
less than two, nor more than five — out of which the 
stupendous system, with its infinite details, has been and 
is constructed. Thirty years ago the writer of these 
chapters was in a condition, intellectually and spiritually, 
to affirin that Fire, Heat, Light, and Electricity (see 
Nat. Div. Rev. Part II.) were and are the essentials 
from which the universe, as it now is, was unfolded 
from least to the greatest. "Fire " being the name for 
both a condition and an effect ; so, also, of the other 
three successive terms. Electricity was evolved from 
Light ; light from Heat ; heat from the central, primor- 
dial condition, Fire. If the language of scientists 
would better meet the popular necessity, I would affirm 
that Matter and Motion, or Substance and Force, are 
the eternal twin principles at the origin and foundation 
of the universal whole. The primitive or lowest form 
of motion is angular; hence, as the first legitimate 
effect, Fire ; the next advancement in the form of the 
motion, ascending out of the angular, evolved Heat ; 
when the perfect circular motion was developed, then 
Light flowed throughout infinitude ; the next step in the 



80 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

progression of motion unfolded the spiral, and forth- 
with, as from an inconceivable vortex of substance and 
force, a boundless ocean of Electricity overwhelmingly 
floods and enchains the systems of immensity. 

Let us now confine our observations and reflections to 
our own planet ; the round earth beneath our feet, with 
its atmospheric envelopment over our heads. Minerals 
constitute the body of our globe ; vegetation succeeds 
and crowns the mineral compounds ; animals succeed 
the vegetable empire ; and the human world, mankind, 
succeeds and covers all, and is the proprietor of all 
predecessors — minerals, vegetables, animals. This truth 
is not only clearly demonstrated by the actual manifes- 
tations of nature, but it is as easy of comprehension as 
the simplest proposition in arithmetic. 
* The earth is an immense chemical laboratory. The 
four or the sixty-four elementary bodies — solids, fluids, 
gases, etc. — are in its constitution, and the indwelling 
laws of development are everywhere the same ; there- 
fore, whatever can occur in our Sun, in Arcturus, in 
any heMo-centre in space, can be and is repeated, on a 
scale more or less limited and perfect, under our very 
feet, over our heads, before and within our very eyes, 
day by day and hour by hour. 

Electricity is the name of one of our omnipresent 
servants. But his relatives are numerous, some obscure, 
all honest, and they have travelled all over the world, 
with various names and aliases — Galvanism, Voltaism, 
Electro-Magnetism, Electro-Dynamics, Lightning, etc. 
Mankind have known something about electricity ever 
since the Arabians and the Greeks evolved it by means 
of silken ribbons or frictionized amber. Hence it is 



CONCERNING THE CELESTIAL RIVERS IN SPACE. 81 

no stranger, it is accepted as a fact ; but its origin is 
jet entombed in mystery. Franklin invited it from the 
clouds, and Ins successors have evolved it from their 
chemical compounds and improved batteries ; but its 
true cause and fountain source are yet unknown to 
men of science. It is, however, well enough known 
that electricity may be and often is developed by me- 
chanical action ; also by rapid changes in temperatures ; 
by the disengagement of confined gases ; by the chem- 
ical activity, and by the vernal and autumnal trans- 
formations of the leaves of plants and trees ; by the de- 
composition of animal or vegetable bodies ; by changes 
in the atmosphere ; by warm spring rains and by cold 
wind and snow storms ; by rapid condensation and 
evaporation ; and by the sudden compression and dis- 
charge of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and magnetism. 

The earth is literally a perpetual mojtion ; it is really 
a revolving electrical machine ; it is practically an im- 
mense magnetic battery. From its vast mineral moun- 
tains beneath the sea — from its great beds of iron, cop- 
per, zinc, silver, antimony, potassium, bismuth, plati- 
num, gold, tin — an unceasing rain, sometimes a terrific 
storm, of electricity ascends like the breathings of light- 
ning into the atmosphere. It is an incessant electrical 
storm, literally speaking ; and the great enveloping 
volume of atmosphere is its receiving and distributing 
reservoir. 

The motion of electricity, as before said, is spiral ; 
in this connection I mean the electricity of space. 
With a swiftness beyond imagination, it streams in 
great ribbons, and winds itself upon its own natural 
spool at the north. The north magnetic pole of our 



82 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

earth, yon will remember, is not the same in location as 
its axis of revolution. The north-centre is an immense 
helix, an atmospherically coiled receptacle, for the mul- 
titudinous electrical currents arising from all parts of 
the globe. The simultaneous and incessant rush of 
terrestrially evolved electricity to this great north spiral 
centre, results in the instant formation of a never-ceas- 
ing self-illuminating vortex. The luminous lightnings 
evolved by this great battery, and from the inconceiv- 
ably rapid motion of the collected electric storms within 
the polar vortex, make those wondrous manifestations 
known as the aurora borealis, which especially char- 
acterize the northern hemisphere. 

Immediately on its arrival at the north helix, elec- 
tricity is instantaneously transformed into a more re- 
fined form of motionary and motive force, which I 
have been deeply impressed should be called " Ethe- 
rium ; " but for all ordinary purposes it may be very 
properly denominated celestial magnetism. 

This wondrous elemental evolution from the electric 
coil is a substance as warm as a breath of August ; and 
this, too, at the extreme north, where the light and heat 
of the sun do not exert any great influence. Mountains 
of ice and a continent of snow surround this warm, 
vivifying, magnetical centre ! In certain years and 
centuries birds and vegetation, also a few animals, come 
up and subsist for a time beneath this boreal magnetic 
sun ; but, in other seasons and centuries, when the north 
helix is vitally changed by solar and atmospheric 
causes, the warmth and radiance become suddenly too 
diminished to invite or sustain life, either vegetable 
or organic. It is unnecessary that I should refer to 



CONCERNING THE CELESTIAL RIVERS IN SPACE. 83 

geological discoveries, or to the testimony of Arctic 
explorers, to confirm the declarations herein made. 
Neither is it necessary to remind mankind of the polar 
phenomena — those tremulous lights and changeful 
colors which are frequently seen at night in our north- 
ern sky. But there are other evidences to which your 
attention may be attracted in future chapters. 

At this point, and before direct explanatory refer- 
ence is made to the diagram, No. 2, you might do well 
to glance at it and study it for a moment, or until its 
outline import makes a mark upon your imagination. 
(" Imagination ! " you exclaim, " ah, yes — that is the 
unreliable faculty which must be appealed to by the 
writer." My reply is, " If you really wish to learn 
what I mean by 4 imagination,' read the true explana- 
tion of this inward power in either the Penetralia or 
the Fountain* From this digression we pass on to 
the subject under consideration.) 

The incessant formation of countless streams of 
ribbon-like rivers of electricity in the air, and from 
three to ten miles above the heads of mankind all over 
the round world, is in itself a scientific wonder, and is 
the cause of " more things (sights and signs) in heaven 
and earth " than is written down in any philosopher's 
volume. It is an invisible, natural fact at the basis of 
all atmospheric motions ; it causes all electric variation ; 
and explains the dipping and fluttering freaks of the 
magnetic needle. It is the primal cause of climatic 
alterations in the far upper strata of the atmosphere ; 
the cause of the formation of banks of auroral vapor, 

* Penetralia, New Ed., p. 87 ; the Fountain, p. 139. 



84 VIEWS OF OTJR HEAVENLY HOME. 

and of certain boreal clouds of unrivalled brightness 
and beauty ; the cause, in a word, of almost all the 
remarkable auroral and boreal splendors — the magnifi- 
cent waves of prismatic light in the North, in the East- 
ern horizon, and sometimes brilliantly centering and 
unfolding like a blossomed rose at the Zenith ; the 
cause of flashes of blood-red flame in the sky, or of 
undulations of various colors at prodigious altitudes, 
forming a corona of orange, green, blue, purple, ter- 
minating in a centre which seems to rotate like a wheel ; 
the cause of the fearful development of floods of light 
resulting from the flight and ignition and sudden pre- 
cipitation of cosmic atoms a few miles above the earth's 
surface, which flight occurs in a method somewhat peri- 
odical ; the cause, in connection with the voluminous 
streams of terrestrial magnetism, of a certain propor- 
tion of the motion of the tides, of the alterations of the 
zones and of changes in inhabitable regions ; and 
finally, and most remarkable of all, these mighty 
streams and rivers of electricity and magnetism, which 
are evolved from the inexhaustible fountains of the 
globe, have as much to accomplish in promoting and 
maintaining the revolution of the globe itself, regulated 
by the universal law of compensation or equivalents, as 
the vital forces, generated in and by the nerve-centres 
of the heart and brains and lungs in man's body, are 
compelled to accomplish in sustaining the involuntary 
motions of these organs by which they are energized 
with streams and rivers of life and animation, not to 
speak of the elements of the future spiritual body 
which those same organs and forces are constantly 
attracting, evolving, and refining. 



CONCERNING THE CELESTIAL RIVERS LN SPACE. 85 

But you must not, because of all this overwhelming 
newness and beauty in the organization of Father God 
and Mother Nature, lose your mental sight of the sub- 
ject just now so interesting — namely: the formation at 
the same moment, and in all seasons, and on all sides of 
the earth, of the great streams of electricity which speed, 
with a thought's celerity, into the spiral electric helix 
at the great north centre ; whereby is generated and 
evolved a flood of magnetism, which is positive and 
warm to the negative and cold volumes of electricity ; 
which positive golden Amazonian river, like a warm 
Gulf-Stream tending toward regions far, far among the 
stars, first rises high in the air, and, flowing above the 
South-pole, pulsates onward and outward and upward 
and inward, until it breaks like a note of immortal 
melody upon the welcoming shores of the Summer- 
land. 

The accompanying diagram, although imperfect in 
giving relative proportions, is nevertheless a fair out- 
line representation of the formation, emanation, and 
counterflowings of the chemical and electrical atoms 
which are popularly known as the forms of a motion. 
These eliminated and ascending particles are indicated 
by a a ; which atoms (some of which have a cosmical 
destiny) are, as before said, incessantly evolved from 
the earth's chemical laboratories — rising, like unparti- 
cled rain or universal perspiration, from every pore of 
the earth's body, to a height differing from three to ten 
miles ; here forming a northward flowing stream, b, 
which proceeds to the great polar swirling whirlpool or 
electrical vortex, V • from thence, having been repo- 
larized and attenuated, they disappear in a great belt 



86 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

of celestial magnetism, which perfectly surrounds and 
engirdles the earth like an elastic ribbon — a beautiful, 
warm, currental river, which streams rhythmically like 
an epic into the vast infinitude. This might be called 
" the celestial highway " — leaving the earth and all en- 
tanglement with its axial revolutions at the central 
point of the exceedingly rarefied atmosphere, which 
forms an egressive opening at and beyond the South- 
pole — blending with itself in the bosom of space, aug- 
menting its energy more and mor Q - by inherent attri- 
butes, and from the incidental contributions of force ; 
and thus wholly freed from the attractions of earth, and 
responding to the gravitational invitations of an interior 
universe, this royal road of surging elements continues its 
inconceivably swift flight onward and inward to the 
beautiful shores of our Heavenly Home. 



tfjfAZMOs^ 



N*3 




FLOW OF THE MAGNETIC RIVERS INTO SPACE. 



CHAPTEE III. 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CELESTIAL CURRENTS. 



'Now with swifter, swifter motion, 
Swaying with the swaying tide 
Onward, to the shoreless ocean 
Of eternity, we glide." 



-Sarah Gould. 



Of the hundreds of thousands of Christians living in 
this world to-day, hardly one seems familiar with the 
"supreme facts of the physical universe ; not to speak of 
the heavenly spheres, to which their attention is hereby 
sincerely invited. These celestial facts, not fancies, are 
as numerous as the sands of the sea. Between the cen- 
tre and the two poles of the earth lie the whole philo 
sophy of mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and angel 
existence. We need no other revelation of God ; and 
no other teacher than reverent Reason. 

Let us now resume our subject. It must be re- 
marked, in the first place, that the south-pole of the 
earth is destitute of elemental polarization. Strange to 
relate, it is neither positive nor negative, owing to its 
intimate relation to the great equalizing solar-power ; 
and, consequently, the south-pole is a neutral ground, 
and therefore perfectly favorable to the internowings and 
counterflowings of the electrical and magnetic currents. 

Although in the southern hemisphere these celestial 
currental floods are constant, and far more abundant 
than at the north-pole, yet the southern sky is seldom 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CELESTIAL CURRENTS. 89 

illuminated by thern. One reason of this is their great 
height ; another is, the position of the spectator is sel- 
dom favorable. There are, however, as several modern 
scientists well enough know, certain states of the tropi- 
cal atmosphere, which will admit of observation; at 
which times the southern horizon, also the expanse of 
eastern sky away up to the zenith, is gloriously decor- 
ated and overspread with many-colored illuminations. 
In Australia, and in the palm-growing zone, the inhabi- 
tants can recall several such displays. (In diagram No. 
2, the volume of outgoing and incoming elements is not 
correctly represented; for it therein is exhibited as 
being larger in diameter than that of the earth itself.) 
The mild, magnetical radiance of this vast ocean is re- 
flected upon the earth in tropical nights, rendering 
every object and scene far more than ordinarily beauti- 
ful. This immense volume of outflowing elements is 
inseparable from the Zodiacal Light, with the particles 
of which river these elements perpetually intermingle 
at their fringed edges, receiving and imparting heat, 
light, electricity, magnetism, and dynamic energy. 

Let us not, however, in these chapters, repeat what 
has been written concerning these celestial wonders on 
pp. 415-16 Grt. Har. Yol. V., and in other works of the 
series ; to which (for a differing flow of considerations) 
the investigator is referred ; but, to make clearer and 
more explicit one or two points, I now ask attention to 
the accompanying diagram, No. 3, giving another and 
more accurate representation of the aerial streams as 
they operate in the southern hemisphere. 

It will be remembered, by the studious reader of the 
vol umes referred to, that I have affirmed that there were 



90 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

electrical rivers setting toward earth and toward the 
various planets in our system from different sections of 
the Spirit Land. By the above-mentioned diagram, 
which was drawn with stricter reference to relative pro- 
portions, your attention is called to the diameters and 
relations of the central channel of these currents. The 
arrows at the earth's surface indicate the atoms flowing 
from every part of the earth to the north pole, V ; 
thence, above in the atmosphere, a, a, streaming south- 
ward to the south pole ; from which, frequently like an 
inverted pyramid, but more resembling the half of a 
hollow sphere, the magnetic rivers rise and flow out into 
the planetary spaces. Between these twin-rivers, as 
you observe, is indicated the returning magnetic stream, 
which conveys constant pulsations to the life of man- 
kind from the great central sun of spirituality and in- 
telligence in the Second Sphere.* 

Before leaving this subject, however, there is one 
fact more — viz. : the geometrical principle of right lines 
giving the shortest distance between the earth and the 
Summerland, which inherent principle perfectly ex- 
plains the truth about the directions of these interstellar 
rivers. But here arises a natural question as to the rev- 
olution of the planets, comets, etc., whose orbits come 
near or cross the path of these celestial gulf streams. 
The answer is : The materials composing these rivers 
render them either positive or negative to the approach- 
ing planet, and vice versa / consequently, as an elastic 

* See Nat. Div. Rev. Part I., wherein is given a true explanation 
of the method and source of the author's " impressions " concerning 
the realities of things, laws, essences and ideas. Also see the Appen- 
dix to this volume. 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CELESTIAL CURRENTS. 91 

ribbon would be repelled by an electrified ball presented 
sufficiently near to its surface, so these rivers float away, 
either bending downwards or else ascending into a 
grand prismatic arch, thus giving ample room for the 
passage of a planet. But immediately afterward they 
resume their customary direct courses. The composi- 
tion of these currents is such that they swing and flow 
like the waves of sound and light, with vibrations and 
straight lines and with pulse-like throbs unceasingly; 
thus harmonizing under all the conditions of space with 
planetary revolutions, with the flight of comets, and 
with the stupendous movements of the immeasurable 
Univercoelum. 

Departing now from a further detailed considera- 
tion of this subject, not being consistent with the primal 
purposes of these chapters, I pass on to answer a large 
flock of buzzing interrogatories, which have been re- 
cently generated. 

An impression is now beclouding the reader's mind 
to the effect that all personal communication and all 
spiritual commerce between earth's inhabitants and the 
population of the higher spheres, is possible only 
through the aerial rivers — that every one, either going 
or coining, must first find these particular currents, and 
then sail, float, or glide upon them, in all voyages un- 
dertaken through the heavenly expanse. 

This supposition is based in error. For have I not 
already many times affirmed the great fact, which was 
most completely described by Swedenborg, that the 
world of spirit is omnipresent '( He records over and 
again, " Wonderful Things seen in the World of Spirits," 
which is one thing ; but he means, and very truly 



92 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

means, something totally different when he gives " Rela- 
tions of Things seen and heard in the Spiritual World." 
By the latter terms he meant the Divine side of the 
universe — in three indwelling divisions — the natural, 
the spiritual, and the celestial or heavenly. Against 
these three divisions of the Spiritual World, as you will 
remember, Swedenborg offset and balanced his three 
hells, one within the other ; the most interior and re- 
mote hell being the exact opponent of the most perfect 
and inmost heaven. This antagonism to exist to all 
eternity ; which theory, outside of Swedenborg, has no 
foundation. 

But however widely and absolutely we may differ 
with Swedenborg when expounding his theological 
hypotheses (by which he was, for so many serious and 
busy years, psychologized both day and night), we yet 
agree with him when he affirms, what common sense 
and intuition and science concurrently confirm, that, 
on a principle of correspondence, just as the soul is 
within the natural or material body, so is there a world 
of spirits or a spiritual world within the natural or ma- 
terial world. In this essential we agree with Sweden- 
borg. 

Accordingly, when a man dies to the external world, he 
very soon becomes alive to the existence and the things 
of the world internal. Without leaving the chamber 
of death — which is not an uncommon occurrence with 
persons of a certain earthly constitution and unaspiring 
mind — the individual is, or may be, in a position to 
take immediate note of many " Wonderful Things seen 
and heard in the World of Spirits." He observes what 
was before the inside, but which has now become the 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CELESTIAL CURRENTS. 93 

outside, of every person, object, event, etc. He can 
discern (or see) exactly what is occurring in the very 
room wherein " he died " only a very few hours pre- 
viously. Persons who thus naturally, or by affectional 
preference, linger near and hover about the u place 
of their birth " (which is usually called death), are 
frequently mentally and spiritually disqualified either 
to receive or impart light and happiness. But they 
are in the omnipresent " world of spirits," and this is 
the only point we now desire to impress upon you. 

Swedenborg described, under psychological dictation, 
and by force of the logical requirements of his biblical 
system of correspondential revealments, the situation of 
" the world of spirits " as intermediate, or as a sort of 
hadean neutral territory, between the three eternal 
heavens on the one hand and the three eternal hells on 
the other. But accepting the truth that the spiritual is 
within the natural, as the soul is within the body corpo- 
real, it follows logically and scientifically and truthfully, 
that whenever and wherever a man dies, then or there 
he becomes forever an inhabitant of the interior uni- 
verse ; and it as logically and naturally follows that 
from that time and from that place the death-emanci- 
pated man may and does ascend into the air, and, either 
by volition or involutarily (for do we not ail speed away 
on the earth both night and day at the fearful rate of 
sixty-eight thousand miles an hour?), he can thus and 
he does thus, sooner or later, enter his appropriate place 
in the Summerland. For there is no space in the 
fields of infinitude which cannot be traversed by beings 
whose existence revolves upon that wonderful pivotal 
power called TOIL The fields of earth can' be crossed 



94 VIEWS OF OUK HEAVENLY HOME 

* 

from any point and to any other point ; even so the 
celestial streams can be forded — the aerial oceans navi- 
gated ; and thus the very rivers of paradise may be 
made subservient to the eternal unrest of mind. 

And yet the orderly method of travelling between the 
earths and the interior universe, is by means of the 
currental rivers already described ; and these are there- 
fore the recognized royal, celestial highways intertwin- 
ing and connecting spheres and globes, which revolve 
at incalculable distances from one another. (See Dis- 
tances, etc., in the Stellar Key.) 

Amid the sad scenes of this rudimental world, and 
amid the overpowering hardships of our common 
physical and social life, what a relief it is to contem- 
plate the wisdom, the loveliness, the grandeur, the 
uplifting love, the boundless beneficence, which exist 
for us under our very feet, and all the way round the 
earth, and over all our heads ! All mankind are by 
necessity great travellers, and restless ; because all our 
eternal life is a progressive and endless journey. If 
we halt by the way, if we attempt to take a brief need- 
ed repose in the lengthening shadows of our sunset 
days ; then forthwith the spinning earth, like a steed 
at his highest speed, runs away with us ; and very soon 
he ruthlessly destroys everything we hold in the arms of 
love as most sacred. Driving, driving — drifting, drifting 
— onward and inward every moment, whether sleeping 
or waking, whether good or evil, whether obedient or 
transgressing, whether in the mystic charm of love or 
enveloped in the blackness of despair — onward and 
inward through birth into life, through death into life 
again, rapidly or slowly, yet with the certainty of resist- 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CELESTIAL CURRENTS. 95 

less fate — upward " Where the glorious arch is lifting," 
speeding with the swiftly, softly, sweetly flowing river 
of transparent and glittering beauty, which glows with 
the effulgence of liquid gold, which reflects the stars 
around and the suns above like a ribbon-mirror com- 
posed of purest diamonds — still onward we go, floating 
through scenes more resplendent than the hallowed 
dreamings of angels ; and thus we arrive upon the 
dimpling margin of the Summerland — to form new 
associations, to grow by feeding on new surroundings, 
to unfold in the warming and illuminating atmosphere 
of the divine love and wisdom, instructed by the past, 
thankful for the present, and hopef ul for the future 
which shall be everlasting. 

And now we may rest. Listen ! Did you say 
" rest \ " What ! you an everlasting pilgrim, rest f 
With a combination of elements and with a living bat- 
tery of attributes which embody the activities of all 
dynamical principles ; which are empowered to out- 
live and to comprehend more than all the belts of in- 
habited stars that beam with splendor all over the bend- 
ing heavens — to you inaction (miscalled "rest") will 
be forever impossible! And the reason is this: you 
take beautifully into yourself the live wine expressed 
from the experiences of the whole history of mankind. 
Its inwrought pleasures fatigue you ; its evils in your 
fluids harass you; its ambitions in your brain-matter 
push out into the most rapid express trains ; its drudge- 
ries in your muscles disgust you ; its great labors in 
your very marrow drive you into the invention of labor- 
saving machines ; its rattling and jolting and jarrings 
outrage your ears, and they force you to study and to 



96 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

evolve the system and the instruments of consoling and 
healing music ; its dredgings and drainings and tunnel- 
ings put you out of temper, and they suggest to your 
reason and hope a world after death, which shall be all 
beauty and all perfection ; and, presently, overcome 
with the oppressions of an abounding materialism, you 
hasten gladly to lie down upon the couch of beautiful, 
restful death. [Your friends bend tenderly and weep 
over your cold body. They draw what they call " con- 
solations," with the old bible-buckets, from the same 
old wells of faith. At such a time they even reach over 
and encroach upon forbidden ground ; yea, even appeal- 
ing to Spiritualism, but only as it is given to the world 
in the gentle lines of Whittier : 



" With silence only as their benediction, 
God's angels come, 
Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, 
The soul sits dumb." 

And you ? They say that you have gone to " your 
rest/ " What? With the fire and frenzy of the world 
stored in your very life, with the experiences of all the 
hosts of your predecessors mixed with the elements of 
your affections, and inseparable from your attributes of 
thought ? Do you know who you are ? And do you 
know where you are ? You are what the whole past 
universe of effects have made you. And you have as- 
cended (having first died) to a more commanding sum- 
mit of experience, which is flooded with infinite possi- 
bilities. You are essentially the same man you were 
before you died away down there on the rudimental 
earth. All your spiritual looking-glasses reflect the 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CELESTIAL CURRENTS. 97 

well-known disposition, character, and countenance. 
The angel spectators about you plainly see you through 
and through ; you are by them weighed in a new bal- 
ance ; and love and justice, not appearances and circum- 
stances, are now and henceforth to be your judges. What- 
ever you are really worth ! that is the price the angels 
will stamp upon you ; and then they will point out to you 
the unbroken pilgrimages of eternity. And then, moved 
forward in your own orbit, like the globe itself, by the 
inherent principles of revolution, and progression, you 
enter " into heavenly rest," through the wide-open gate 
of love and wisdom and worTc. Tou will build altars, 
and erect monuments, and set up a tabernacle to endure 
forever. But as surely as generation follows genera- 
tion, so surely will truth crumble your altars, overthrow 
the monuments, and consign all your tabernacles to the 
ever-shifting sands of time; and thus your religions, 
your governments, your schools of thought, come and 
go, just as you came and went, and the universe is and 
will forever be all the better for it. 

But we are admonished not to fill our intellectual 
sky with too many clouds of Nature's great system, so 
replete with grandeur and magnificence. 

A man's great, self-important and strutting individu- 
alism becomes fearfully and wholesomely diminished 
in the presence of that which is irresistible and eternal 
and sublime. His strength is displaced with a profound 
feeling of helplessness ; and his experiences, and his 
very existence, seem like thistle-balls drifting in the 
unknown winds of destiny. These feelings are spiritu- 
ally wholesome to you ; for such an honest humiliation 
may augment your growth. So long as you do nothing 
5 



98 VIEWS OF OUK HEAYENLY HOME. 

to merit a loss of your own self-respect, and so long as 
your self-abnegation is occasioned by your devotion to 
what you esteem as the best truth, so long you are a safe 
and a truly growing man. Your feet will ascend upon 
the golden rounds of a Jacob's ladder, which is daily let 
down from the Summerland ; and the gleaming mead- 
ows beyond the sunset will blossom for you ; and upon 
your pilgrimage you shall hear the soft footfalls of lov- 
ing guardians ; while your hands shall touch those whose 
inmost hearts beat faithfully in unison with the truth 
you love and worship. 






CHAPTER IV. 

A GENERALIZATION OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF NATURE. 

" No boundless solitude of space, 

Shall fill man's conscious soul with, awe, 
But everywhere his eye shall trace 

The beauty of eternal law. 
Sweet music from celestial isles 

Shall float across the azure seas, 
And flowers, where endless summer smiles, 
Shall waft their perfume on the breeze." 

—Lizzie Doten. 

Detailed examination of the harmonious system, of 
the physical universe, although indispensable to the 
largest practical development of what is popularly 
called "inductive science," would be far easier to the 
studious reader of these chapters after contemplating 
a generalization of the system. There is, also, a deeper 
mental enjoyment experienced, not to speak of the in- 
tense spiritual enthusiasm which is invariably awakened 
by viewing a subject from the highest and most com- 
prehensive altitude of observation. 

The hastening multitude, superficial in most matters, 
and upon this subject indifferent to the very verge of 
thoughtlessness, exclaims (when a detailed accuracy is 
instituted), " Oh, you are too scientific ! " u Abstrac- 
tions and technicalities are awfully tiresome," etc. 
This is true, especially to an impatient inspector of, and 
to a wholesale dealer in, ideas ; but this is not true of 
one who is profoundly and correctly impressed with the 



100 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

sublimity of an eternal principle ; for such a mind 
loves to follow truth into its minutest ramifications — at 
once a radical and a fruit gatherer — one who is certain 
to receive a rich happiness by patiently examining into 
the minutest roots of a subject, while plucking the de- 
licious results which cluster upon its visible branches. 
It is, for example, very spiritualizing to one's superior 
sensibilities, and love of beauty and harmony, to ascend 
some enchanting elevation above the highest tree-tops, 
and from that lofty solitude contemplate and absorb 
the impressions imparted by the soft, hazy, indefinite- 
ness of a vastly extended landscape. And, to be accu- 
rate, this is the only knowledge of natural beauty which 
the great human multitudes of earth have any desire to 
obtain and possess. 

But if all minds were so constituted and thus gov- 
erned, if there were no under- working and insistent 
radicals, no sub-standers within the inner vestibule of 
the secret centres, no interior and minute investigators 
into the fine lines of light, and into the well-nigh invi- 
sible shadowings which really compose the great land- 
scape of indefinite, dreamy beauty — if all minds were 
generalizes, then, we ask, where would be those great, 
living pictures which now bring the skies, the fields, the 
flowers, and the musical streams into our private parlors 
and public institutions? A true artist is one who is 
compelled to deal with the definite, the explicit, the 
stern, the severe, the ugly, the grotesque, the painful, 
the discordant, the despairing, the self-sacrificing ; and 
thus, and from these facts separately impressed upon 
his devoted, self-torturing imagination, he slowly and 
faithfully evolves the unity and the beauty, and the 



A GENERALIZATION OF NATURE. 101 

usually unseen enchantments of Nature into harmonious 
lights and shades upon a canvas, which is called "a 
picture ; " which (alas ! as too often happens in this 
world of haste and thoughtlessness), long years after the 
true artist died of despair or starvation, is given by his 
unpaid landlord in exchange for many thousands of 
dollars, which sum is gladly paid for it by some true 
and wise lover of Nature. So, too, the true music artist 
works into and out of excruciating discords — unfolds 
from the fatiguing details of common sounds, and from 
the horrible depths of jargon — the grand symphonies, 
the marvelous orchestral combinations, the wonderful 
music of surrounding Nature. The more perfect and 
analytical the master, the more true and enchanting are 
his synthetical interpretations of the universe of sounds 
which exist without and within him ; because he knows 
his subject to its very roots, because he is faithful to the 
facts and laws of his knowledge, and because he can im- 
part both his inspirations and the grand results of his 
knowledge to mankind. 

"But first," exclaims the reading spectator, "let me 
see your picture, let me hear your music, let me behold, 
at one sight, what you term the ' Harmonious System of 
Nature ! ' ' After the exhibition is realized in the form 
of a generalization, " then," you say, " I will examine the 
subject in detail, if I have the time to spare." 

With this understanding between us, then, I will 
presently proceed to impart the required generalization. 
But let me entertain the pleasurable hope that, after 
you have sufficiently feasted upon the immeasurable 
greatness and divine beauty of the system, you will 
clothe your eyes with a pair of microscopic glasses, and 



102 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

occasionally also with a telescope, which will open to 
you two new universes, now almost totally invisible to 
you, which will demonstrate the truth of what is now 
imparted both by observation and revelation. 

A true seer of the secrets of the material system was 
the spiritual philosopher and gentle teacher, Pythagoras ; 
whose clear, analytical vision, and far-reaching synthe- 
tical imagination, discerned and combined the rhythmi- 
cal harmonies of the infinite. Had he declined all 
social mysticisms and all ordinary political fellowship, 
and been at all times only an ethical and philosophic 
teacher, it is probable that his revelations of the causes 
and effects of matter and force would be to-day as much 
quoted as is Shakespeare, or as are the authors of the 
New Testament. But his great personal popularity in 
a brotherhood overwhelmed his greatest possibilities as 
a seer; and the consequence was, that the inductive 
thinker and energetic worker Aristotle walked boldly 
and victoriously in where the deductive and gentle 
Pythagoras had hardly dared to touch the least toe of 
his foot ; and to-day the result is, that the spiritually- 
minded of the world intuitively think of Pythagoras 
and quote Plato, while their vigilant critics, the mate- 
rialists, instinctively appeal to Aristotle and Bacon, but 
demonstrate by Euclid, the Oriental, who wrote and 
taught over two thousand years ago. 

Pact by fact, step by step, mankind have been steadi- 
ly progressing out of the so-called Orphic " dreams " 
and subjective " speculations." And yet, in the face of 
it all, it might be profitable to inquire what more does 
the world know to-day than in the "era of Plato and 
Ptolemy? The answer would be universally educa- 



A GENERALIZATION OF NATURE. 103 

tional, and especially important to future investigators. 
We must turn away from neither the inspired " ideas " 
of Plato, nor the " rhythmical order " of the universe 
disclosed by the illuminated reason of Pythagoras. 
Scientific progression is intrinsically materialistic. It 
does not deal with spiritual qualities nor with the origin 
of things ; but it does increase in quantities, and it grows 
in becoming more and more accurate in detail. Thus 
scientists have enlarged the boundaries of human knowl- 
edge, and also of human ignorance. They have ob- 
tained much wisdom along with more systematic foolish- 
ness. And now, with the self-sufficient complacency 
characteristic of youth, they strut about among their 
club acquaintances, pronouncing this " absurd," and 
that " impossible ; " and, on many questions of spiritual 
import, it is remarkable how new scientists and old 
theologians play into each other's hands ; while at the 
same time, relati vely, they are mutual antagonists. 

Having prepared our minds for a more comprehen- 
sive view, 1 will proceed now to our promised gene- 
ralization. Mv thoughts were led toward Pythagoras, 
because he was a seer of the qualities and principles 
of things, as Plato was by the eyes of his illumined 
reason. They each had vast insight concerning the 
essential causes and universal harmonies of Nature. 
Neither of these minds, however, had knowledge of the 
extent and operations of all the great systems of stars, 
nor did they discern much concerning the inhabitable 
planets of space ; and yet they possessed very great wis- 
dom concerning the divine grandeur of truth, and they 
taught profoundly concerning the great inherent possi- 
bilities of the system. 



104 VIEWS OF OUK HEAVENLY HOME. 

What a deep lesson in psychophonics was taught by 
Pythagoras ! " The music of the spheres," said the 
golden-mouthed teacher, " can be heard by abstaining 
from the food of animals ; by bodily purity ; by medi- 
tations ; and by presenting to the elements the internal 
faculties of mind." Than this, nothing since has been 
more wisely uttered. 

* * * An hour has elapsed since the last sentence 
was written. (This is the 15th of January, 1877.) * * * 
A few words have come to me psychophonically from 
Pythagoras, who is now one among the great hosts of 
the ascended : " My lessons of numbers were wrong- 
fully appropriated by alchemists. . . . Animals 
were sacred as expressions of the Supreme life akin to 
maris. . . . Jupiter represented the central Sun- 
power. . . . to harmonize with all was human 
happiness, a duty" * * * 

After a prolonged waiting in silence, nothing more is 
heard from the inner world. And now, having long re- 
flected upon these few detached sentences, my conclusion 
is : that, notwithstanding the lapse of so many centuries, 
the lover of troth thus seeks to impart a few corrections 
of doctrines with which historians have coupled his name. 
This record being duly made, 1 return to our subject. 

In geometry the most natural and simple figure is the 
circle. By the use of the sphere, the cylinder, and the 
circle, Euclid, and afterwards Archimedes, made true 
progress toward solving many of the sublimest mysteries 
of the stellar universe. But the ellipse is a more fruit- 
ful figure than the circle,* and we find it introduced, 

* " A more fruitful figure," seems to be an almost fantastic ex- 
pression. What do I mean ? This: An ellipse is a geometric form 



A GENERALIZATION OF NATURE. 105 

with the hyperbola, by Apollonins ; who thus aided 
Hipparchusin his conception of epicycles and eccentrics, 
as applicable to the motions of planetary bodies. 

The progression of intuitive philosophy, and of prac- 
tical mathematical knowledge — which moved together 
side by side, like the first pair in the garden — was 
very wonderfully advanced by that old wise Egyptian, 
Ptolemy, whose doctrines faithfully served the world 
for nearly sixteen centuries ; or until Copernicus intro- 
duced the idea that the sun, and not the earth, was the 
centre around which all bodies in the heavens were 
harmoniously revolving. Then came the larger idea 
that each of,, the planets, as well as the earth, might 
be an inhabitable world, for which wholesome sugges- 
tion the world is indebted to Bruno. Thus, in spite of 
all organized theological opposition, which was intense 
and tragical, the sun as the centre of the planetary sys- 
tem, and the conception of a plurality of worlds, came 
into mankind's thought. And these thoughts came to re- 
main, and to act as the germs of infinitely more impor- 
tant knowledge in the same sublime pathway. Galileo 
and a telescope now came to augment the world's 
growth. But these great aids came, let it be remem- 
bered, in spite of the prisons and death-racks of the 
so-called Christians. After Galileo we behold Kepler, 
with his three great discoveries or laws, demonstrating 
the elliptical orbits of the planets, arid going far into 
the secrets of celestial magnitudes and distances. Then 

with two centres in one envelope, so to say ; that is, an ellipse is 
double -energized, positive and negative, a male and a female, which 
fruitful fact is made practically manifest in every chemical com- 
pound or organism where the perfect ellipse exists. 



106 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

came Yinci, Borelli, Newton, Laplace, Herschel, and 
the score of great students of the stars who now live 
and labor. 

A universe means a revolving unit. This unit turns 
over and over, perpetually. And this conception ante- 
dates all inductive reasoning. It is natural to contem- 
plate the earth as a body in space. To infantile minds 
the world is formless ; to the youthful it is not very far 
to the horizon ; to the strong young mind it is very 
large and definitely shaped ; but it is only with matu- 
rity of years that the complete idea of the immeasurable 
sphere is implanted, and fixed as a reality upon the 
human understanding. 

The intuition of the spheral form of stars and planets 
is very ancient. It came into the world vaguely at first, 
and it was rapidly mixed with clusters of gods and cor- 
relative mysteries. But time has eliminated Oriental 
mythology, as it will annihilate old Orthodox theology ; 
and the truth, pure and sublime, will shine fully and 
freely into men's more receptive minds'. 

Then, too, will be seen the ineffable harmonies of the 
system of Father God and Mother Nature. Wheels 
within wheels; universes within universes; revolving 
units within revolving units ; everywhere, beautifully 
and rhythmically, throughout infinitude. 

It is asserted that light would consume twelve years 
in its flight from the nearest " fixed stars " to the human 
eye. (Upon this question of light " more light " is im- 
peratively demanded.)* 

* Readers who may not have access to Part I. , of the ' ' Stellar 
Key," will fail to understand what is here meant by " light." In 
that volume a carefully prepared scale is presented ; wherein " Light" 



A GENERALIZATION OF NATURE. 107 

The perfect ellipse is the form of the orbits in which 
all fully developed suns, earths, and satellites move 
through space. They all rotate in the same general 
direction: and all the bodies move in the same general 
plane. 

The glory and harmony of the system become more 
and more apparent as you study and familiarize your 
mind with the stupendous whole. The most fruitful 
form already mentioned, called an ellipse, is the geo- 
metrical figure naturally unfolded to the prepared un- 
derstanding. Comets, like the fractional notes in music, 
manifest eccentricity ; but they, like all the full notes 
and all the octaves embodied in suns and planets, are 
attuned to the master key-note, which is the innermost 
Sun; which Sun is, so to speak, the cerebrum and the 
cerebellum, the hrain, of the Great Positive Mind. 

The marvelous combinations of music are beautifully 
revealed in the flow and formation of all the systems of 
space. Seven spheres in the spiritual universe witliin 
seven circles of suns in the material universe. Behold 
in them the seven notes in music ! "When the eighth 
note is sounded, it is but the reproduction or reappear- 
ance of the first note — acting, so to speak, as a bridge 
of vibrations for the formation of another series of 
sounds attuned to a still higher key. Thus no origin- 
ally new sounds are evoked ; but rather the f undamen- 

is seen as the first manifestation of Infinite Being-, called "God." 
Thus the very existence of the Great Positive Mind is primarily de- 
monstrated by the development of Light. The light is treated scien- 
tifically as an ether or fluid ; having a rate of motion which can be 
measured. But there are other attributes to which present science 
is blind. 



108 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

tal sounds on differing scales, or in varying degrees of 
motion. 

Thus also in the structure and among the sounding 
motions of the universe may be heard the pianissimo, 
the fortissimo, the crescendo, the diminuendo, the' 
sforzando, all the half -notes of the chromatic scale, and 
all the perfections of sounds which constitute the dia- 
pason of the vast systems of immensity. 

Numbers lead into all the secrets of harmony. In 
the eternal perfections of the spiritual universe, which is 
a revolving unit, the seven notes are eternally sounded. 
This sublime scale is orchestrally responded to by the 
seven grand circles in the material universe, as anthem 
answereth unto anthem in the vast cathedrals of eternity. 
But the key-note to the spiritual universe is the interior 
Central Sun of love and wisdom, and the key-note of 
the material universe is the exterior Central Sun, 
which surrounds and clothes the potential Centre. 

Here we find the original of Beethoven's symphonies, 
the essentials of Mozart's orchestral interpretations, the 
spiritual richness and fairy delicacies of Weber, the 
sacred beauty and natural sweetness of Mendelssohn's 
oratorios, the affectionate energy and inspiring ideality 
of Wagner — in a word, in the fundamental principles 
and in the soul-sounds of the harmonious system of 
Nature are found all the existing and all the possible 
musical developments of mankind. 

The only perfect musical instrument is the manifold 
perfections of the twofold universe. The universe is 
the harp of all the impersonal principles ; the silver- 
tongued trumpet for the use of all the gods; the per- 
fect-toned organ played by the Eternal Master of all 



A GENERALIZATION OF NATURE. 109 

grand music. The spheres musically roll through the 
star-peopled depths like the songs of " the morning 
stars." ISo known aeolian sound is so delicate but that 
it is a thousand times more perfectly repeated in the 
Summerland. And the sweet music of eloquent 
thoughts is heard by ears which are open to the 
" breezy anthems " that incessantly breathe themselves 
through the interstellar spaces. 

Mathematics are at the bottom of all system and order 
in music ; and music, in its perfect and full expression, 
is a revelation of the whole system of nature. 

And this last one sentence shall go on record as the 
promised generalization. It shall be to you like a voice 
speaking to your very heart from the sky ; a melodious 
revelation of the everlasting truth concerning our 
Heavenly Home. You shall prepare yourself to hear 
the orchestral " music of the spheres." It will come 
sounding sacredly round about the temple of your in- 
terior life; like the rhythmical pulsations of Love's 
infinite sea. It will baptize you in its harmonious 
waters. And your discord and your false notes shall 
return to you sounding in your ear like a warning call 
— " Hepent ye." In the silence of your listening heart 
you shall also hear the sorrowful sobbings of the great 
rivers of human life in this world. And then, when in 
your better state, the anthemnal songs of the angel 
singers shall be to you a further revelation — namely : 
That Father God is one universe, and that Mother 
Nature is another universe — that these twain are perfect 
counterparts in heart, in brain, in essence, in spirit — 
that this duality is a living oneness which is truly called 
Eternal Harmony. 



CHAPTEK V. 

CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. 

" Away, away, througli the wide, wide sky, 
The fair, blue fields that before us lie, 
Each sun, with the worlds that round him roll, 
Each planet, poised on her turning pole ; 
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white, 
And her waters that lie like fluid light." 

— Wm. C. Bryant. 

The grand system of the universe may now be con- 
templated from another point of observation. 

We have presented it as constructed upon the princi- 
ples of pure music, and as an instrumental organ for 
the expression of eternal harmony. 

Sweden borg presented the heavenly universe as 
" One Greatest Man ; " in the spiritual organs (or king- 
doms) of which dwells the " Lord Himself," as a man 
lives within his physical body. But this anthropomor- 
phitic representation was a natural consequence of his 
theological and psychological diathesis. God, he affirmed, 
was a Divine Man. In the heavens, said Swedenborg, 
God {tJie Man) is constantly visible — at all times per- 
ceptible to the highest angels ; but the immediate ap- 
pearance of God to the spectators is that of a Sun, 
from which proceed love and wisdom which operate 
as heat and light. Anthropomorphism is, therefore, 
the basis and the superstructure of Swedenborg's 
teachings an hundred years ago; because he was at 



CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. Ill 

that time a profound believer in the spiritual and 
celestial sense of the Bible as the Word of God. But 
now does he not read Nature as the only bible ? 

The most ancient star-students, with far more figura- 
tive reasoning than intuitive imagination, regarded all 
the heavenly bodies as wanderers, which is the original 
meaning of the term " planet." Every planet, they 
said, is like a bird without a nest ; like a fish out of 
water ; like a goat lost among the barren rocks ; like a 
victim-seeking scorpion without his power to inflict 
injury ; like a prowling lion strayed from his native 
forest ; like a master bull that must forever look for, 
and never find his herd ; like a ram separated from the 
fold ; and thus the Oriental star-students, aided by the 
science of numbers, finally developed the chromatic 
scale of constellations known as " The Twelve Signs of 
the Zodiac." In this arrangement the earth is regarded 
as the centre, and the planets as so many wandering 
divinities, good and evil ; and that grand galaxy of 
mysteries the Milky Way, as the primordial pathway 
over which the great unapproachable Sun-God rolled 
his magnificent chariot, when his majesty had accepted 
the eternal crown and sceptre, as the King of kings, 
the Lord of lords ; henceforth to act as ruler over the 
earth and moon, and all the stars in the firmament. 

The geocentric (or earth-centre) doctrine, neverthe- 
less, held its place firmly in the minds of all ancient 
astronomers — not even emancipating so great a mind as 
that of the learned Ptolemy ; and, with the exception 
of several side-glimpses by Thales and Pythagoras, and 
by a few of their successors, the earth-centre theory pre- 
vailed until Copernicus suggestively opened the way for 



112 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

the inspirations of Bruno, who was eventually burned 
at the stake by the Christians of that day and genera • 
tion. Bruno and Galileo lifted the world by their great 
ideas. They perfectly overturned, in the face of all 
church-opposition (which is always ignorant and there- 
fore cruel) the venerable hypothesis ; and, instead, they 
established the heliocentrical (or sun-centre) explana- 
tion of all planetary relationships and movements. 
Thus this new truth, that the sun, not the earth, was the 
pivot, entered into and expanded men's minds. But 
the dominant theology, as it always does, scowled blight- 
in gly upon all the new teachers ; and when possible, 
the church imprisoned and burnt them ; and why \ Be- 
cause, first, the new astronomy deprived theology of 
the pet and profitable doctrine that the earth was the 
chief object of God's sleepless attention and anxiety ; 
and because, second, the new astronomy fatally impaired 
the church's most vital belief concerning the supernatu- 
ral coming and going of God's only son ; for, if the 
earth was not the most important centre, then the im- 
pression was implanted among men that the earth's 
inhabitants were hardly worth the sufferings and igno- 
minious death of the only child of the Infinite God. 
For what were the human family when compared with 
the countless myriads of larger human families which 
literally swarm on the great planets which revolve 
about the measureless sun-centres of space ? 

But the planets, those brilliant wanderers through the 
unfathomable stretches of sky, w T ere reverently contem- 
plated by the early thinkers ; and, to accomplish several 
ends, the stars were counted and gradually gathered into 
constellations. Birds, fish, serpents, animals, men, wo- 



CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. 113 

men, gods, implements, and musical instruments, were 
accepted as appropriate figures. Within these signifi- 
cant figures the ancients mapped out and systematically 
classified the wonderfully bright bodies, which only 
midnight darkness, and a transparent, unclouded sky 
could bring out and plainly reveal to the human eye 
and mind. 

Astrology very naturally originated from the irre- 
pressible suggestiveness of this very ancient Chaldean 
and Egyptian, plan of mapping out the star -peopled 
heavens. The figurative and the symbolical terminology 
employed, soon developed the hypothesis of stellar influ- 
ences as inseparable from individual human birth, life, 
and destiny. Mars stood for war, Yenus for love, Mer- 
cury for intellect, Jupiter for power, &c. ; and the con- 
stellations very soon became celestial houses of various 
forms and degrees of good and evil. Astrologists had 
a scholarly and mathematical basis. In other words, 
they perseveringly evolved a real astronomical system 
of accurate calculations concerning the relations, posi- 
tions, and movements of the stars and planets ; and thus, 
although the superstructure loomed imposingly up 
among the clouds of mystery and error, the so-called 
science was adopted and advocated as truth by some of 
the best minds before the dawn of better days through 
Copernicus and Galileo. 

Unlike the anthropomorphize revealments of Swe- 
den borg, by whom the figure of the " Grandest Man " 
was given as the true form of the superior universe, the 
ancients filled the heavens with representatives selected 
freely from the kingdoms of fish, bird, reptile, animal, 
human, and deities; not neglecting musical instru- 



114: VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

ments, implements of husbandry, arms of warriors, 
sceptres of power, and various signs of pride and pas- 
sion. All these images conspicuously decorate, or else 
disagreeably detract from, existing maps and popular 
books on descriptive astronomy. The groups of stars, 
or the systems of groups, called constellations, are cor- 
rectly placed in the sky by astronomical geographers. 
And thus we can follow the earth's path under the 
heavenly bodies all the way round the year. But the 
names adopted from the ancients, like most of the popu- 
lar theology which is advocated by Evangelical Chris- 
tians, both of which are derived from ages equally re- 
mote and superstitious, would be far better for man- 
kind as simple history than as forms and methods of 
thinking. 

The unspeakable vastness and holy grandeur of the 
Univerccelum are faintly intimated by the accompany- 
ing diagram, No. 4. No books on astronomy either 
contain or even suggest the figure here presented. All 
these constellations, or all of which astronomers have 
any knowledge, are confined to the topmost belt (M, in 
the cut) of suns and systems. These bodies are fed by 
the outlying infinity of coinetary substances, which 
swarm in the outermost fields of the material universe. 
These world-building bodies are represented in the dia- 
gram as moving simply above the star -fields or univer- 
ses, M. It should not be forgotten, however, that this 
diagram represents the different sections of immeasur- 
able, innumerable, and inconceivably vast systems of cir- 
cles of suns and planets ; each circle having a silver or 
golden lining, so to say, indicated by those arcs, giving 
the positions of the succeeding spiritual zones, called 



_> -^~* 



wm& x ^ * v - 



5J-- 



^^§}=^^; = ^~%^~l^^. 







MostInterior.Sun. 




1 



«! 




iiiiii 



SECTIONAL DIAGRAM OF THE UNIVERSE. 



116 VIEWS OF OUR HEA.VENLY HOME. 

Summerlands, wliicli become finer and more celestial 
as they approach the Central Sun — the relative position 
of which Sun, to the entire system, is intimated by radial 
lines at the very bottom of the diagram.* 

Here let us reverently pause, and yield our interiors 
to profoundest contemplation. Let us not hasten, 
bird-like, superficially and flittingly, over and around 
these immeasurable, these ineffably divine and vast, 
these multitudinous and unchangeable realities of eter- 
nity. Your most sincere feelings, your finest thought- 
powers, your deepest intuitions, with their brightest 
illuminations, should be wholly and prayerfully con- 
centrated upon the subject, otherwise it were far better 
that you should close this volume and resign yourself 
to indifference, or give your fancy the flattering assur- 
ance that the school-books and the august professors 
of the colleges have taught you far truer and wiser 
concerning the natural sciences and the unnatural 
metaphysics of philosophy. Nay, thoughtful reader ! 
You should pause here, and seek to enlarge your per- 
ceptions of these sublime realities of immensity by 



* Our astronomical universe is confined to two groups of dots in 
the diagram, No. 4 : that is, astronomers, with their greatest tele- 
scope, have never seen beyond those two star-fields indicated by two 
clusters on the left hand ; our own entire solar system being indi- 
cated by the smallest dots in the next to the last left-hand group. 

The Central San is equal to all the infinite systems of boundless 
space. The Summerland zone nearest the star-belt M, is the 
youngest, and is therefore the first Heavenly Home after death ; 
but, because we, as spirits, begin here our first step in life, so the 
after-death world is properly termed '" the second sphere." Concern- 
ing the inhabitability of the inner Summerland zones more will here- 
after be remarked. 



CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. 117 

yielding yourself to a wider and prof'ounder association 
(in your thoughts) with the ethers, essences, laws, and 
principles, upon which the Univerccelum in its harmo- 
nious perfection exists. 

Have you granted this most reasonable request ? Do 
you this moment profit by this counsel ? If so, then 
with most pleasurable emotions you will yield yourself, 
free of the catechism and untrammelled by scholastic 
prejudices, to the contemplation and possible compre- 
hension of the arcanum about to be disclosed. 

The Central Sun ! These three words are easily 
written and spoken. But what inconceivably vast uni- 
verses, what unfathomably deep foundations, what per- 
fections of unchangeable principles, exist in that Cen- 
tral Sun ! It is no idle use of language to affirm that 
this radiant Central Sun of the Univerccelum is bound- 
lessly vaster and infinitely richer in Divine perfections 
than the highest angel-intelligence can ever hope to 
comprehend. Yet it is possible to comprehend the 
constitution and functional operations of this Centre 
by comprel lending correctly the constitution and essen- 
tial workings of some corresponding Centre nearer our 
own present situation, in the outermost sun-circle of the 
stupendous system. 

Emanations, I repeat, constitute the covering of, or 
the ephemeral peri-spirit to every physical organization. 
Things not yet organized, like simple elements in the 
mineral kingdom, are also clothed with an appropriate 
atmospheric garment, the particles of which gradually 
oozed from within and formed themselves as an aura 
closely around the surfaces ; upon the same principle 
as the skin and the hair are pushed out and organized 



118 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

externally upon the body of every animal structure, or 
as birds are clothed with feathery garments. Upon 
this universal and unchangeable principle the external 
of every sun is surrounded with a sphere of Light 
(which is not the light by which we see with bodily 
vision) — a solar fluid, strictly speaking, which is ener- 
gized with the properties of all vitalic principles ; it is 
the magnetism of the sun-laboratory, pure, flaming 
with fiery radiations ; it is brighter in its brilliancy 
than the ineffable shine of the sun itself ; a solar peri- 
spirit, so to speak, which flows swifter than lightning 
far and wide throughout all that portion of space which 
is occupied by all those planets and satellites which 
belong to that particular sun. 

The external function of our visible sun — to take a 
literal illustration, nearer to our present existence — is 
visible ordinarily as " a ball of fire." But this appear- 
ance is an appearance only ; for a revolving and float- 
ing ball of fire through the cold ether of space could 
not long continue ; while the perpetual flaming of its 
magnetic and elemental emanations is an inevitable con- 
comitant of the performance of the sun's constitutional 
functions. And yet it is true that our sun is a central 
source of one of the planetary and man- bearing systems ; 
and, as a Centre, the sun is of necessity still in a condi- 
tion of uncondensation similar to the centres of the 
globes which, noiselessly roll around it. 

Comprehending the fact of a physical sun by which 
all around it is originated, actuated, governed, sustained, 
and progressively developed, you are measurably pre- 
pared to comprehend the existence of a Spiritual Cen- 
tral Sun, which, in each Summerland, is visible in the 



CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. 119 

lofty heavens above ; each sun being the Focus of the 
accumulated Love, Will, and Wisdom of that particular 
sphere of individualized existences. Swedenborg testi- 
fied that the Lord appeared " like a sun " to the eves of 
all who reside " in the spiritual world," which he some- 
times designated as the "celestial" and most "interior 
heavens ; " where this Lord-luminary was perpetually 
visible, shining with the Love (heat) and Wisdom (light) 
of the infinite maker of the universe. 

There is a greater arcanum to be divulged, namely : 
that there is a Sun, shining like " the Lord of Heaven," 
in the pure sky over each Summerland ; and, moreover, 
the more interior the inhabited zone, the more brilliant 
and beautiful is the spiritual sun in the upper firma- 
ment. Yv 7 herefore, it might be said, with literal truth- 
fulness, that there are as many Lords as there are 
spheres inhabited! Here the term "Lord" and the 
words " spiritual sun " are used to mean the same fact. 

The great focal positive power or sun of the mental 
possessions of the adjoining Summerland, is, therefore, 
the Lord whose Love and Wisdom will flow into and 
nourish your love and your wisdom ; and who will 
enfold you and strengthen you, and who will fill you with 
light and liberty and happiness, if you will but enter 
that superior condition which puts you into closest sym- 
pathetic relationship therewith.* 

* The reader's attention is asked to Nat. Div. Rev., Part I., 
wherein, in other language, all this is foreshadowed. See pp. 38, 40, 
41, 42, 43, 44. On the last page named, it is written: " My infor- 
mation is not derived from any persons that exist in the sphere into 
which my mind enters ; but it is the result of a law of truth, eman- 
ating from the Great Positive Mind," etc. See Appendix. 



120 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

A luminiferous ether floods infinite space. It is 
within and without all things. Shall we call this pure 
life-ether the " wine of God ? " It fills all things ; it is 
the fire of suns ; the force of stars ; the purifying pre- 
sence in all mineral structures; the links in the life of 
plants; the power which circulates the blood in ani- 
mals ; the bridge by which man materially is connected 
to man spiritually — what name, I ask you, shall we 
give this shining, fiery, purifying, conjugating essence 
of the Univerecelum 'i Among the stars it is an astral- 
emanation ; among the suns it is a solar-emanation ; 
over each Summerland it is the absolute "Lord of 
Heaven ; " in each human heart it is inseparable from 
affection, and in each head it is allied to intelligence — 
what shall we call it? Until a better term is given, we 
w T ill name this Omnipresent luminiferous ether, the 
spirit of God. 

Scientists have interrogated the imponderables of 
space. The gases, until recently, have been called 
"the imponderables." But it has been discovered that 
a solid body may be elevated in temperature and liqu- 
fied, even etherealized ; and, the reverse, that the so- 
called imponderables can be reduced progressively down 
to the fluid state, by the persistent application of cold. 
Four thousand one hundred and ten pounds of atmo- 
spheric pressure upon hydrogen, as an invisible gas, 
forced it to become a materialized and visible fluid. The 
cold of space was estimated by Herschel as two hun- 
dred and thirty-nine degrees below zero; and yet this 
enormous cold would not be adequate to the reduction 
of hydrogen to a palpable fluid. 

Thus the freezing cold of space would seem to be some- 



CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. 121 

thing frightful to contemplate. But we do not go out 
after death with these chronothermal nerves ; hydrogen 
is not our after-death envelopment ; the spiritual body 
is impressible by nothing less fine than that omnipre- 
sent solar-influence and astral-ether which we have 
agreed to name the spirit of God ! Neither heat nor 
cold, nor the changes of time, nor the decomposition of 
countless universes in eternity, can disturb the body of 
the spirit. And the spirit itself is susceptible and obe- 
dient only to the irresistible principles of progression, 
which are the will-emanations of the Centremost Great 
Positive Mind. 

There is another arcanum to be made manifest in this 
connection. 

The Summerland within the sixth circle, and also 
the next approaching the Centre of All, resemble the 
inhabited planets in this general particular: they are 
constituted, heated, lighted, beautified, diversified, and 
clothed upon with perfections adequate for the pres- 
ence and sustenance of mankind, only upon their most 
external surfaces. In the fertile valleys and abroad 
over the expanded fields, Nature (the earth, for exam- 
ple) develops and entertains her human offspring, while 
she is parsimonious and barren upon her most majestic 
mountains, and equally so upon the elevations and 
beautiful hills which, at a distance, look so enchanting 
to mankind. But in her hidden warm places, closer to 
her interior bosom, so to say, she welcomes her children 
and feeds them with every beautiful and sweet perfec- 
tion. 

What we have for so many years designated as the 
" second sphere " and the " third sphere " must be 
6 



122 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

understood as inhabitable only upon their outer sur- 
faces. But it is a principle that the material universes 
become more refined and more highly organized as they 
recede from the Central Material Sun ; even so, and in 
the same relative proportion, that the spiritual universes 
(the Summerlands) grow more celestial and become 
more heavenly in their perfections and glory as they 
recede from the circumference, or as they approach 
toward the inmost Central Spiritual Sun. 

Now the arcanum already mentioned is this : That the 
fourth, fifth, and sixth spiritual spheres are inhabited 
on both sides ! 

For years I have known, by psychophonic commu- 
nications and by sympathy with the principles con- 
tained within the luminous centre already explained, 
that these more interior Summerlands are, both within 
and without, inexpressibly beautiful with every divine 
perfection, and that they have been for countless ages 
of eternity, and are, now, populated by those heavenly- 
minded and truly celestial personages who have been 
thus gradually advanced in their progressive march 
toward the All Perfect Sun of the Univercoelum. 

Thus there is a perfect analog} 7 between the human 
spirit and body and the spiritual and material universes. 
By means of logical reasonings, and not less certainly 
by the testimony of your intuitional teachers, you can 
satisfy your own mind that these affirmations are true. 
For illustration, man's body is saturated by the soul- 
elements which eventually (at death, or soon after) 
assume a perfect form, which is thenceforth and for- 
ever the body of his inmost, which we call Spirit — 
meaning the whole mental being of the individual. 



CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. 123 

Now you observe that our present material body is 
finest and most perfectly organized in beauty near and 
upon its external surfaces ; but, reversely, that the 
more interior and central you investigate man's per- 
sonal existence, the closer you approximate to the best 
and most divine in him, called spirit. Centrally, there- 
fore, man is most perfect spiritually / while he is more 
perfect materially as you reach the circumference of 
his being. 

Having made known these essential truths concern- 
ing the spiritual and material suns, the nature of the 
ether of infinitude, and the inhabitability of both sides 
of the three innermost zones, we are now prepared to 
intelligently resume a further consideration of the har- 
mony of the whole system.* Here the thought must 
be urged that no telescope can possibly bring to the 
eye of man a point of light beyond the sixth circle of 
suns. In the diagram these systems, of the sixth circle, 
or rather the groups of our visible constellations, includ- 
ing the Milky Way, are represented as reposing just 
beneath the world- building comets. 

Our sun, our earth, and all the planets of our own 
special system, exist and have their being in one of 
those clusters. The first Summerland zone is beneath 
this belt of suns and stars ; for, being spiritual in its 
constitution, it approaches the Central Sun ; while the 
belts of suns and stars, being material in their constitu- 
tion, are situated externally, and have moved outwardly. 

In that one uppermost belt is the entire corporeum 
celestium, so far as is yet known to mankind, excepting 

* Estimates by astronomers may be found in the Appendix. 



124 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

as clairvoyantly revealed. The indescribably stupendous 
girdle or galaxy — the Via Lactea, or Milky Way — is 
visible as a part of this outermost organized sixth circle. 
Keep in memory that our earth-position necessitates an 
edge-wise perception and impression of the Milky "Way. 
It is the light of a part of our special star-field. Stand- 
ing within this field, and looking outwardly and side- 
wise, we see only irregular clouds of light, which clouds 
are in very truth whole systems of sans and planets. 
The constellation supposed (erroneously) to be nearest 
the earth, the Canis Major or " Great Dog," contains 
that star (the erroneously supposed cause of pestilence, 
in ancient times), Sirius, whose pure light consumes 
many years in its flight to the human eye ! Ilerschel 
supposed that solar light would require millions of ages 
in travelling from some of the most remote stars to the 
earth ; and this supposition, too, is not unmindful that 
that form and degree of motion called " light " moves 
with the inconceivable celerity of one hundred and 
ninety-three thousand miles every second ! Some as- 
tronomers have estimated the flight of light per second 
to be about one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles. 
Such magnificent stretches through immensity, im- 
plying such remote sun-centres of stupendous magni- 
tudes, and so many millions of millions of ages, as we 
measure " time," well nigh overwhelm and vanquish 
the most expanded imagination. The healthiest human 
mind, unless its possessor occasionally gives it vigorous 
exercise upon these sublime themes, is simply appalled 
and stunned. And yet such contemplations are whole- 
some — invigorating, ennobling, exalting ; and you are 
therefore urged, because you are a spirit, and because 



CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. 125 

you are destined to live an eternal life, to think upon 
and familiarize your reason with questions of eternity. 

By impressions imparted, as I have before explained, 
fi-om the sun-fountain of intelligence in the Second 
Sphere, we learn that the measureless sweep of the 
more distant universes through space is regulated upon 
a principle of double motion, which is perfectly illus- 
trated by the circulations of globules and fluids in the 
human body. 

Principles of progressive and (apparently) retrograde 
or backward movements — which principles are both 
positive and negative — apply to and fully explain all 
solar and planetary motion. The first is an expansive 
and forward (or centrifugal) impulse and movement ; 
the second is a contractive and inward (or a curvilinear) 
and centripetal movement ; then there is a general for- 
ward oceanic flow of the whole circle of suns, as one 
solid, massive universe. The whole movement is like 
an endless or almost perfectly circular ocean. Thus in 
man's body we behold, first, the outward, rotary and 
vibratory motion of the fluids and globules of the blood 
from the heart ; second, the return motion of the same 
minute atoms and fluids to the heart ; and, third, then 
all the movements in man's body, together with his body 
itself moves (unconsciously to the man) upon and with 
the earth through space, at the appalling rate of more 
than a million and a half of miles every twenty-four 
hours. 

Xow take the earth, for example, which originally, or 
at first, moved like an immense spheroidal mass of fire, 
heat, light, and electricity. This great mass moved at 
first centrifugally around the parental sun-centre. In 



126 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

appearance, excepting the electrical, trailing streamers, 
it was a vast cometary accumulation (as it really w r as) 
of all the essential elements and qualities which were 
destined to ultimate into what it now is and will be- 
come. Then as soon as it had sufficiently developed 
into the globular form, it forthwith made a " declaration 
of independence " of the maternal bosom, and imme- 
diately turned inwardly, or upon its own axis centripe- 
tally ; and thus was established, and thus are invariably 
established, the two eternal motions of all planetary and 
solar bodies. First, outward, in a rectilinear direction, 
terminating centrif ugally ; second, inward, in a curvi- 
linear direction, terminating centripetally. 

But do not astronomers generally know or believe, 
that the earth has also a third motion % The enlight- 
ened Russian investigator, Madler, supposed that he' 
discovered a prof o under motion. lie declared scientifi- 
cally that our sun, and the earth (of course), together 
with the entire planetary system, is journeying harmo- 
niously around a mighty and far-away centre which is 
located in the brightest of that wonderfully brilliant 
group of seven stars, called the Pleiades. 

For a sacred moment let us contemplate the reful- 
gent centre about which our system is said to be rhyth- 
mically revolving. (Let me here say that while I know 
that our whole system is drifting toward Alcyone, I do 
not yet certainly know that Alcyone is the centre.) 
Alcyone, for example, is the mother of our ever-faith- 
ful sun, the grandmother of our earth, and the great- 
grandmother of the little moon which plays in and out 
about the orbit of the earth like a boy around his affec- 
tionate mother. But there are many mighty and 



CONCERNING THE SOLAR AND ASTRAL CENTRES. 127 

majestic sons and daughters, together with a countless 
host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, play- 
fully circling around their august maternal ancestor. 
These pilgrim-children are great pedestrians ! They 
all move forward with a cheerful regularity toward the 
great ancestral constellation, at the delightfully exhil- 
arating rate of about eight miles in every second, thus 
making extra express-train time (always " on time," 
and never once "jumping the track"), and yet going 
ahead over and under and around and between the 
tracks of other trains, speeding to other destinations at 
the safe rate of twenty thousand miles in every sixty 
minutes ! 

Now j ust here it must be written, and not be forgot- 
ten, that onr feminine Sun has been on a visit to 
her mother, who lives among the " Sweet influences of 
the Pleiades," only twice since her birth ; and it must 
be further affirmed, that, since she (our Sun) bore these 
later children (viz., the Earth, Venus, Mercury, and the 
inner asteroids), she has " not had time " to take them 
to see their effulgent grandmother ! For, let it be re- 
corded that our prolific solar mother produced these 
later little ones when she was in the perihelion of her 
last journey. And it has been estimated that it would 
consume about eighteen millions and two hundred 
thousand years for our sun, although constantly travel- 
ling twenty thousand miles an hour, to carry her splen- 
did great family back to the Pleiades, so that they 
might all see their gorgeous, royal, star-crowned grand- 
mother, Alcyone ! 



CHAPTEK VI. 

THE BEAUTY AND GLORY OE THE PLANETS. 

' ' And o'er the vast area of space, 

And thiough the height and depth profound, 
Each starless void and shining place 
Was filled with harmony of sound. 
Now swelling like the voice of seas, 

With the full, rushing tide of years, 

Then, sighing like an evening breeze, 

It died among the distant spheres." 

Kepler's Vision, ly Lizzie Doten. 

We will now return to a consideration of the philoso- 
phy of planetary motion. I think it is safe to say that 
the secret of all diurnal and orbital movement is out. 
But, before proceeding with this subject, it is necessary 
to repeat a little. 

At first, as I have said, the earth rolled into space a3 
a formless mass : and thus moved in an eccentric orbit 
around the productive sun, its mother. Then, second, 
as it became more self-centered, and more steady rela- 
tively to its own heart of fire, it began to turn upon its 
own axis. And then, third, with its mother and the 
whole family, it floated and yet floats like an atom in 
the endless oceanic flow of the entire combined unity 
of the sixth circle of suns. And here we affirm that 
what is true of our earth and of our solar system, is 
equally true, and, upon the same unchangeable princi- 
ples, must everlastingly continue to be true, of all other 



THE BEAUTY AND GLOET OF THE PLANETS. 129 

similar bodies and systems which exist in the surround- 
ing infinitude. 

Motion is at the bottom of all material phenomena ; 
and motion explains the weight as well as the rarity of 
bodies. An increase of centripetal motion in a body 
increases the weight of every thing attached to that 
moving body ; but the levitation or lightness (of the 
same things) is increased in proportion to the increase 
of the body's centrifugal motion. And here, also, is 
another law : Slow motions among moons, and planets, 
and suns, arise from one of three causes, either their 
extreme youth, or their old age and decrepitude, or 
their relative position to the sun. Let us apply this law 
to our moon. 

Our satellite, we here affirm, is in its extreme youth, 
a bright faced little boy, the first and " only son " of 
our earth ; although there are enough earth-born mate- 
rials afloat without and within the lunar orbit to de- 
velop in time another good sized moon. That the 
moon is in its infantile stage is demonstrated by the fact 
that, thus far in his history, he has been capable of 
performing but one revolution " on his own responsibil- 
ity." He turns over only once in one of his years, 
which is just four of our weeks ; which is the exact 
time he consumes in travelling all the way around his 
mother, earth. All satellites are latest children of the 
body about which they roll and play in a kind of waltz- 
ing or wavy motion. 

Our especial solar system, the sun and its large family 
of earths and moons, is comparatively a young forma- 
tion. Many of its operations, like the surfaces and 
climates of the earth, are yet crude and deficient when 
6* 



130 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

contrasted with some of the other and similar systems 
which musically move through the firmament. Never- 
theless, as the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn perfectly 
demonstrate, by moving around with their mothers on 
the same direction and on the same plane, the eldest 
born among them is just entering upon the era of an 
increase in the number of their revolutions. Jupiter's 
outermost moon, like Saturn's, has been long showing a 
self -centered tendency by departing from the plane of 
the primary (or from the old-time door-yard and play- 
ground obediently observed by each of the younger 
children) ; and, also, by becoming attached to other 
congenial bodies, not members of the family, and thus 
at certain times developing a new form of eccentricity 
in its revolutions. Astronomers will be richly rewarded 
by taking new observations of Jupiter's fourth and Sat- 
urn's eighth satellite ; also by making a new estimate 
of the sun's mass as compared with that of all the 
bodies known to revolve about her; and thus reach two 
conclusions, first, that a true balance necessitates the 
addition of three new planets, not less in magnitude 
than Uranus with satellites to equal the mass of Nep- 
tune ; and second a reconstruction, if not a total aban- 
donment, of the popular doctrines concerning the nature 
and effects of fire, heat, light, and electricity, whereby 
many planetary operations, now invisible owing to pro- 
longed occupations and the rapid motion of neighboring 
bodies, will be discovered, greatly to the enrichment of 
astronomical science. 

Our familiar, bright-faced moon illustrates at once 
both the primordial condition and the first grand cen- 
trifugal motion, through which all solar and planetary 



THE BEAUTY AND GLORY OF THE PLANETS. 131 

bodies pass, on their way from youth to extreme matu- 
rity, coldness, and decay. He cannot be trusted yet to 
take more axial exercise out doors ! He is now, and has 
been, through many of what we call " ages," permitted 
to make himself perfect in turning over once a month 
on his own strength ; but when he is older, stronger, 
and more self-centred, he will surprise his mundane 
lovers and scientific admirers by changing the pro- 
gramme of his performances. He will begin to have 
three days and three nights of his own in a single year; 
for he will then take more axial exercise, making out 
for himself a year of revolutions in one of our months; 
enlarging the sphere (orbit) of his operations, and open- 
ing a place for another brother to be born out of the 
far upper atmosphere, which is now pregnant with 
flowing rivers of world-building bodies. Even now 
parts of the moon could sustain animal life as it does 
vegetation of the most primitive and gigantic propor- 
tions. Thus the moon will imitate and repeat the life 
and conduct of his mother. He will make three revolu- 
tions where now he can perform but one ; and, with an 
increase of his strength, finer vegetation will come forth, 
and animals and human beings will be evolved upon 
surfaces which are now, in sections, covered with moun- 
tains of mineral formations, glittering with electrical 
and magnetic emanations, which could not be appropri- 
ated by anything having lungs, a heart, and warm blood 
to circulate. An increase of centripetal or inward mo- 
tion, developing more axial revolutions, will change the 
moon and everything upon its surface. It will, in a 
word, cease to be a satellite (except as the earth is one, 
and as the sun is), and thus, by the law of progress, the 



132 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

moon will become a fruitful planet of modest propor- 
tions. 

Behold now, thoughtful reader ! the figure of the 
universe which I have acquired by telescopic observation 
illuminated by impressions from the essential centre in 
the Summerland. It is not, as you will naturally re- 
mark, the figure of the " Greatest Man," it is not the 
mythological history of past races tattooed upon the sky 
in the fantastic shape of constellations composed of 
aimless wanderers (planets) through the dreary abysses 
of space ; but it is a harmonious system of universes, 
of units within units, of belts of suns and systems with- 
in more remote and perfect suns and systems ; each 
moving musically, with almost lightning swiftness, in 
an orbit around its parental centre, and each also turn- 
ing upon the axis of its own responsibility, so to speak ; 
and, finally, the whole resembling a perfect flower of 
measureless magnitude and filled with eternal fragrance, 
rooted in the loving soil of the infinite Heart, and blos- 
soming perpetually into innumerable lesser flowers (or 
worlds) freighted with every conceivable possibility, 
destined to unfold progressively into every variety of 
life and animation, and to build " better than they 
know " by introducing upon each flower (or planet) that 
consummation of all organization — the human immortal 
mind, a miniature reappearance in image and likeness 
of the central productive Brain and Heart, called by all 
of us who are their offspring, Father God and Mother 
Nature. 



What a memorable day was yesterday ! (the 15th of 



THE BEAUTY AND GLORY OF THE PLANETS. 133 

January, 1877.) It was the first time since the autumn 
of 1846 that I have enjoyed telescopic (clairvoyant) 
observations of many portions of the royal planets. I 
saw many of their inhabitable surfaces and a portion 
of their populations ; and the result was, the unexpected 
acquisition of some most important knowledge. I have 
at length obtained, quite incidentally to the main pur- 
poses of my observations, a few facts which explain a 
remarkable record published on page 189, "Nature's 
Divine Revelations ; " wherein, after a few generaliza- 
tions concerning Jupiter's inhabitants, this statement is 
made : " They do not walk erect, but assume an inclin- 
ed position, frequently using their hands and arms in 
walking, the lower extremities being rather shorter 
than the arms according to our standard of proportion. 
And by a modest desire to be seen only in an inclined 
position, they have formed this habit, which has be- 
come an established custom among them." 

The writer has received since the publication of that 
work of sweeping generalizations, not only hundreds of 
letters from very candid persons urging the desirable- 
ness of some explanation of this passage ; but, in con- 
sequence of its absurdity, which is much intensified 
when viewed in connection with other and inconsistent 
statements on both sides of it, he has also received an 
enormous amount of ridicule, not to speak of the actual 
loss of valued readers as a further result. His inflexi- 
ble rule has been, however, never to expunge or alter 
any word or paragraph which he has ever uttered or 
written, until he had acquired some explicit and com- 
prehensible reason for so doing. But now, after a 
whole generation of men has passed away, or after 



134 VIEWS OF OTTR HEAVENLY HOME. 

more than thirty years, he is unexpectedly enabled to 
shed a ray of light upon the passage, and for this he is 
deeply thankful. 

The chief object of observations made yesterday 
morning was to obtain additional information regarding 
the inhabitableness of those three glorious exterior 
planets. A promise to this effect, you may possibly re- 
member, is recorded either openly or by implication on 
pp. 183, 192, 202, of the great volume already men- 
tioned. But the special ultimate uses and benefits to 
be derived from such additional information, will be- 
come apparent further on. 

While observing the effulgent spirituality and per- 
sonal beauty of Jupiter's various populations — embrac- 
ing differing brotherhoods and special nationalities, and 
widely distributed far on either side of her immense 
equatorial belt, and also over portions of her great 
southern hemisphere — my attention was suddenly at- 
tracted to a massive assemblage of men, women and 
children, walking about beneath a bright sky and per- 
forming peculiar acts ; the majority of the host walking 
in an inclined position, and very many of them actually 
using their hands also in accomplishing locomotion. 
And yet, compared with the bodily appearance of 
many tribes on earth, their physical forms were exceed- 
ingly handsome, and their intelligence was quite spirit- 
ual and commanding. At this moment I recalled the 
paragraph already quoted ; which, very naturally, in- 
duced me to seek further light. And immediately it 
was made plain that I had given a general description 
of the religious ceremonies of a peculiar brotherhood, 
and then proceeded with the other generalizations with- 



THE BEAUTY AND GLOHY OF THE PLANETS. 135 

out stopping to ascertain that this was a remarkable 
exception. It was a singular coincidence, too, that 
these peculiar people were engaged in their religious 
ceremonies on the two occasions of my observation ; 
and it is not less remarkable that, on each occasion, the 
first sight of them stamped the notion that they were 
the aristocracy of Jupiter, and that they characterized 
correctly the manners and customs of all the inhabitants. 

Before proceeding to the question as to the spiritual 
inhabitableness of those three exterior earths, I am 
admonished to ask your attention to the preliminary 
question concerning the possibility that Mars, Jupiter 
aud Saturn can he inhabited by persons clothed as we 
are, in the physical habiliments of bone, flesh and blood. 

It is asserted by astronomers, as a deduction from 
careful calculations, but which will not bear the test 
of a severe analysis, that Saturn does not receive enough 
heat and light from the sun to develop and sustain 
human life. And the same remark is made respecting 
both Mars and Jupiter. Saturn is said to receive not 
more than one-ninetieth, Jupiter not more than one- 
seventieth, and Mars not more than one-fiftieth, as much 
heat and light from the sun as does this inhabited, 
because thus inhabitable, earth of ours. And there are 
other objections suggested and urged by the fearfully 
religious, who only want " God's earth " populated — so 
that the tragedy of a supernatural scheme of salvation 
may be appropriately magnified — and materialists 
with their spectroscope contribute consolations to the 
trembling party, nntil " horrors upon horror's head 
accumulate." For with the ruthless hand of an exact 
science (?) they depopulate our three majestic planets, 



136 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

and freely consign the planets themselves to an existence 
of either twilight or total darkness, while furnishing 
them with perpetual mountains of ice, and with vast 
continents of snow ; at the same time they as freely 
dissolve the remoter bodies into globes of exceeding 
lightness and of elastic flaming fluids, surrounded by a 
garment of perfectly unrespirable atmospheres. 

These remarks are not made to reflect unfavorably 
upon the new form of chemical investigations by the 
employment of the recently invented spectroscope. 
The constituents of substances never before known 
have been brought to light by it, giving us several most 
valuable new metals ; and many of the elements of our 
sun and of the active gases of stars in some of the very 
far-off constellations, have been recently revealed by 
what is called " spectrum analysis." 

By this method the light proceeding from a white-hot 
and flaming substance is admitted to a prism through a 
slit only one thirty-second of an inch wide : the light, 
thus decomposed and shed beyond the prism, is micro- 
scopically examined ; and then, by comparing the lines 
that are visible with those invariably derived experi- 
mentally from the combustion of known elements and 
substances, the properties of the particular flame under 
examination are reliably ascertained. An experienced 
spectrum analyzer can, at a glance, read the properties of 
a metal under examination ; because it is found that the 
number, the position, and the color of the transverse lines 
obtained from the combustion of a substance are invari- 
ably the same. Thus, for example, the lines obtained 
from white-hot gold, silver, soda, zinc, iron, copper, 
calcium, potassium, platinum, oxygen, hydrogen, etc., 



THE BEAUTY AND GLORY OF THE PLANETS. 137 

always appear exactly in the same position and with the 
same number and color; and thus, by employing tele- 
scopic as well as microscopic instruments, the spectrum 
analysis of the sun and of the remote stars can be 
exactly obtained. 

Just here let me remind you that thirty-one years 
ago, in oral discourses, wmich were literally recorded at 
the time, the writer explicitly unfolded the fire-mist 
origin of all suns and worlds in the abysses of the uni- 
verse. And now, to-day, by a recently discovered 
spectroscope, what "confirmation strong" do we unex- 
pectedly and involuntarily receive ! The spectroscope 
has demonstrated, (1) that the same elements enter into 
the composition of the earth, the sun, and of all the 
infinite ocean of suns which float through the stellar 
systems ; (2) that the clouds of nebulae are in reality 
world-building matter in a state of flame, and not yet 
in a condition to be cooled off and rolled out into 
rotating worlds ; (3) that the primordial condition of 
the solar system — that it was originally in a fiery, mol- 
ten state — is fully confirmed by the spectrum of the 
measureless masses of gaseous matter visible in portions 
of the Milky Way; (4) that the most remote stars, 
twinkling and burning in the appalling brightness of 
their own light, are actually just like our sun, both in 
their constituent composition and as to the fact of 
perpetual combustion. 

All the foregoing demonstrates our philosophy of the 
origin and present condition of the physical universe ; 
which, substantially, was suggested by the noble Her- 
schel and boldly advocated by the inspired Laplace as, 
to say the least of it, a most rational hypothesis. 



138 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME, 



CHAPTEE VII. 

THE INHABITANTS OF THE EXTERIOR PLANETS. 

*' Beautiful home of love divine, 
Our deepest hearts around thee twine ; 
Unto thy summer bowers we come, 
Home of the angels — beautiful Home.' 1 

—Song by Mary F. Davis. 

We return now to consider the inhabitableness of 
planets beyond the earth. 

With this question uppermost in the mind, I proceed 
to ask, with special reference to Mars, Jupiter, and Sat- 
urn : Was there not a time in the history of a planet 
when its internal heat was infinitely greater in volume 
and more intense than any solar heat received by the 
earth from the sun ? Can any heat or light be lost ? 
What is this new lesson which scientific investigators 
have derived from the correlation and conservation of 
force % If a great body in space is first equatorially 
cooled off, then broken up and rolled out into revolving 
planets: what becomes of the heat that is necessarily 
evolved and poured into space ? Is heat, or is its chemi- 
cal equivalent, lost f If the sun is a fountain of heat, 
what do you think of Saturn's liquid girdles of per- 
petual magnetic flame ? What function as to warmth 
and light, think you, is incessantly performed by the 
invisible rivers of world-building or cosmical bodies, 
which have not yet become asteroids or satellites ? The 
storehouses of heat in the solar system — where are they ? 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE EXTEEIOE PLANETS. 139 

and what of them ? Is there not a law of compensa- 
tion ? Are there no provisions, in the planetary larder, 
adapted to a planet's bodily appetite and necessities ? 
How is it possible that Mars, moving at the inconceiv- 
able rate of fifty-five thousand miles an hour, Jupiter 
with her four great weighty moons thirty thousand 
miles an hour, and Saturn, with her still larger family 
of worlds, and with her splendid heating arrangements 
and great solar belts, at the rate of nearly twenty-one 
thousand miles an hour — I ask, with all this incessant 
speed and all these motions — how is it possible that no 
terrestrial electricity should be evolved from the prodi- 
gious mineral resources of the planets, whereby auroral 
magnetic warmth, and boreal gorgeousness in field and 
sky, and equatorial vivifications and perfect organic 
developments, should glorify and characterize these 
great worlds, which, like the earth, roll noiselessly upon 
their poles and harmoniously around the sun ? 

There is one more problem, namely, concerning the 
analysis of the spectrum of self -lighted stars, and also 
concerning those planets whose heat and light are sup- 
posed to be derived exclusively from the sun. 

When you investigate the surfaces of Mars and Ju- 
piter, aud subject the luminous rings of Saturn to the 
spectroscopic slit, how do you separate sunlight, re- 
flected, from the universal stellar light which is ab- 
sorbed and appropriated and then reflected from other 
suns ? In other words, how can you determine when 
light is not reflected ? The replies by science to the 
foregoing questions will, better than by any other 
agency, establish our affirmations concerning the possi- 
bility of human existence upon the three adjoining 



140 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

planets belonging to our solar system. * But there are 
a few more considerations deemed essential in this 
connection. They are these : A slow moving body is 
proportionally a cold body ; and slowness and coldness 
are the parents of darkness and death. This principle 
works out the same effects in mind as in matter. You 
cannot impart an idea to a mind until you first arrest 
that mind's attention. The momentary arrest of its 
inherent motions develops, first, heat, which is evolved 
by the suddenly increased action ; and, second, its heat 
develops light, which, in ordinary language, is " the 
idea." Action or motion, then, is the parent of heat 
and fire. But, in one operation of this principle, the 
primary motion is, for an instant, first arrested. Thus 
a mass of matter, whose component atoms are suddenly 
arrested in the sphere or plane of its greatest velocity, 
will immediately by resistance evolve more or less of 
light, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, and dynamic 
force. 

Now you will observe that the results depend largely 
upon the size and weight of the resisting body. Far up 
in the air, although nearer the sun, the cold and the 
dark are appalling. Because the sun's heat and light 
meet with little or no resistance ; and for the same rea- 
son, although further from the sun, the earth is flooded 
with both heat and light. Thus it is that small globes 
and world-building bodies millions of miles nearer the 
sun than the earth, may be comparatively engulfed in 

* The reader is referred to the " Stellar Key " for some reflections 
upon the correlation and conservation of force, and to " Nature's 
Divine Revelations " for a special description of Mars, Jupiter and 
Saturn. 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE EXTERIOR PLANETS. 141 

perpetual night, and may exist in low temperatures ; 
while globes, which are revolving hundreds of millions 
of leagues further from the sun than the earth, may, 
because of their greater resisting magnitudes and special 
motion, be the recipients of proportionally larger instal- 
ments of heat and light. 

Mars is a peer and representative of the Earth in 
many physical particulars. But astronomers permit to 
Mars only half as much light and heat as the earth re- 
ceives. And yet they discern through the telescope 
" zones of intense brightness " and belts of " varying 
brilliancy ; " both at the poles and in different portions 
of the visible surface. And also they discern an ocean 
of asteroidal bodies moving with extraordinary speed 
and with many eccentriciticies in the space beyond the 
orbit of Mars ; from which, however they have denied 
(or overlooked) that Mars should receive by induction 
and attraction immense volumes of such atoms and mo- 
tions as all planets require for their growth, warmth, 
development, and perfection. In consequence of all 
this, it was difficult, as it was unnecessary, for Mars to 
produce satellites, save a very feeble belt of cosmical 
bodies.* 



* Soon after the publication of this chapter it was authentically- 
announced that ' l two moons " had been discovered near the body of 
Mars. Concerning- these very small new bodies, Mr. Chandler in the 
Science Observer, in substance, said: "Comparison with the light 
from other satellites gives results that vary from a little less than 
two to about three and three-quarter miles for the diameter of the 
outer moon of Mars. The conclusion is that the outer satellite can- 
not be of over four miles thick, and is probably less ; while the minor 
one, being fainter, is yet smaller. It appears almost incredible that 
such small masses can reflect light enough to be seen with even the 



142 VIEWS OF OTTK HEAVENLY HOME. 

Concerning Jupiter and Saturn, both immensely vast- 
er than the earth and far greater and swifter travellers, 
considering the size of their families, I have some recent 
observations to record. 

But first let me remind you of another effect of mo- 
tion. A world's rotation agitates its waters, and these 
waters, moving unceasingly and periodically to and fro, 
taken in connection with the sun's heat and light, also 
with valleys and mountain ranges, effectuate in what 
are termed winds, air currents, tornadoes, cyclones, etc. 
The warmth of the Gulf Stream, as well as its constant 
Sowings in certain directions, have been by some minds 
accounted for by reference to constantly blowing hot 
winds and sub-oceanic currents. Let us take this warm 
stream simply as an illustration. Imagine now, what I 
have recently observed on the distant planets, that the 
entire Atlantic Ocean was all the year round as warm as 
is the Gulf Stream, which, in its warmest place, is about 
85°. And then extend a like supposition to the Pacific 

best of telescopes. Unquestionably, these Martial moons are by far 
the smallest of celestial objects yet discovered." 

The question naturally arose : " Why did not the clairvoyant ob- 
server see these two moons ? " The true reply is this : They icere seen 
by him, but only incidentally, or as by a glance, while fixing- the per- 
ceptions exclusively upon the planet itself. And the above brief 
passage by the author, embodies all the importance those minor 
masses seemed to possess in comparison with the magnitudes and 
wonderful sceneries of the body of Mars, which, bear in mind, were 
the objective purpose of the author's especial observations. (This sub- 
ject is further considered in the Appendix). From three separate 
and more recent observations, I am forced to conclude that it is im- 
proper for astronomers to term these cosmic bodies, "moons;" 
they are not satellites in the same sense that our moon is one ; for it 
will be found that they were not derived from the body of Mars. 



THE INHABITANTS OE THE EXTERIOR PLANETS. 143 

Ocean, and to all the great bodies of water. Then 
fancy overhead an atmosphere so atomically constituted 
as to absorb and retain from the sun and from surround- 
ing bodies the purest light and the most delightful de- 
gree of heat. Now imagine no very high mountains ; 
no deep valleys; no rapid air-currents; no violence 
among the winds; in consequence of which, no rapid 
evaporation ever occurs. Then suppose no putrefac- 
tions ; no cold and poisonous vapors ; no stagnant pools 
of water, no undrained lands, no un ventilated or neg- 
lected places between the two poles; no weeds, no 
flies, bugs, worms, snakes, fish, very few animals, and 
an abundance of floral vegetation, fruitful vines, and 
various trees filled with beautiful singing birds. This 
picture, crude as it is, is an outline of Saturn, and it is 
not very far from being correct of Jupiter. 

If our warm Gulf Stream can convey between hun- 
dreds and thousands of miles of cold water and ice- 
bergs, fragments of tropical vegetation, and fling them 
upon the bleak shores of Norway, what could not the 
entire Atlantic and Pacific oceans accomplish toward 
diffusing a tropical warmth and an Italian luxuriance 
of sky and atmosphere throughout the globe % Summer 
warmth would linger all winter in all our northern 
lakes, and also in the polar atmospheres, if it were not 
for the rapid loss of heat occasioned by our discordant 
and swift air currents. Violent winds very rapidly ex- 
tract both warmth and moisture, and leave behind them 
electrical coldness and half -dead masses of fluids and 
solids. 

Now I observe that all bodies of water on Saturn aro 
warm, although the tides thereof are consistent with 



144 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

her axial rotation ; and, with the exception of one vast 
ocean north of her equator, the same remark is true also 
of Jupiter. And all this is true, and much more of far 
greater interest; because of certain solar, and plane- 
tary, and motional influences, which I have either hinted 
at or generally explained. 

All this digression seemed indispensable to a just un- 
derstanding of what is to follow. We will now resume 
our subject: The high-minded inhabitants of the exte- 
rior planets. 

It has already been shown that the internal of the 
outer world is a spiritual world. In Jupiter and Saturn 
this reality is an every-day observation and experience. 
The people there, owing to their exceeding refinement, 
purity and interiority, are in constant fellowship with 
what we erroneously term " spirits," i. e., with individ- 
uals who were once in physical bodies, and who, by the 
triumphal gateway of death, have entered upon their 
celestial pilgrimage. The atmospheric rarefications are 
perfect and most delightful to this end ; by which the 
most interior breathing is universally experienced. 
And the social elements and enjoyments are as high 
and harmonious as they are in many portions of the 
solar-system side of the Second Sphere. A soft, haz}', 
magnetic atmosphere, like that of the fairest Italian 
skies, and something remotely like our golden October, 
covers the landscape with an unutterable loveliness. 
But, seen internally, with clairvoyant eyes, all this is a 
thousand fold more lovely and attractive. 

And now, for the first time, I have acquired knowl- 
edge of the verity that there is a spiritual population 
upon Jupiter and Saturn consociating and harmoniously 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE EXTERIOR PLANETS. 145 

intermingling with the almost spiritual, yet natural, in- 
habitants thereof. And here let it be recorded that a 
similar consociation will, in the future good time com- 
ing, be an actual experience on earth. But this is a 
prospect hardly comprehensible by our thoroughly ma- 
terialistic and now exceedingly skeptical humanity. 

The diagram No. 5, connected with this chapter, is 
designed to illustrate, however crudely, the appearance 
of the Summerland to the natural (yet interior-seeing) 
inhabitants of the planets under consideration. 

It is but recently that I discovered that the orbits of 
these triune worlds pass through the heavens over the 
northern edge of the spiritual zone. Mars moves in an 
orbit which, when at his greatest distance from us, con- 
veys him through the upper sky directly over the shore 
of the zone nearest to the earth. (In the accompanying 
diagram these, planets may be imagined at the right 
hand side.) Its inhabitants, looking out upon the 
wonders of space, would see the Summerland some- 
what as it appears in the accompanying representation. 
Planets in our system beyond Jupiter and Saturn, like 
Uranus and Neptune, together with all their remoter 
and more volatile relatives, are each visible like suns 
when in the aphelion of their orbits. To all the people 
who live upon the inhabitable planets, the Summer- 
land is what " sunny Italy " is to an American ; only 
the celestial Italy is millions of times more understand- 
able and accessible in point of time.*" 

It has been remarked with what lightning quickness 
a telegram may be received from some spiritual person- 

* (See p. 173 " Stellar Key ; " also read what is said on p. 163.) 



THE INHABITANTS OF THE EXTEEIOK PLANETS. 147 

age in response to a mental wish or prayer ! If the 
flight of light is admitted to be about one hundred and 
eighty-six thousand miles a second, and that it consumes 
less than seventeen minutes to fly one hundred and 
ninety millions of miles — or as far again as the vast 
distance between the earth and the sun — if all this be 
admitted, then we ask : What time does the tide of the 
celestial magnetic river require to now from the earth 
to the furthest point of the orbit of Mars ? This is the 
distance traversed by earth-born and death-born voy- 
agers to the nearest locality in the Summerland. One 
hour and twenty-five minutes is the shortest, and four 
hours and one-half is the longest time I have any 
knowledge of ; and this, then, must at present be my 
only reply to this question. But the voyage of four 
hours and thirty minutes had, as I well understood at 
the time, a destination very far removed from localities 
frequently and mostly sought by persons going from 
earth. 

If you can conceive of the universe as the perfect ex- 
pression of an all-loving Mother and of an all-wise 
Father — if you can make a part of your daily existence 
the noble conception that the more perfect your intui- 
tion of principles the nearer you are to the heart and 
soul of things — then, naturally, these revelations of the 
Univercoelum will appear to you not only as possible 
and probable, but as certainties, like the shining of the 
sun and the twinkling of stars. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

REALITY OF LIFE IN THE SUMMERLAND. 

" Oh, pure, placid river, 

Make music forever, 

In the Gardens of Paradise, hard by the Throne ; 

For on thy far shore, 

Gently drifted before, 

We may find the lost blossoms that once were our own." 

—B. F. Taylor. 

Haye I not sufficiently stored your mind with con- 
ceptions of magnitudes and distances ? And may we 
not now intelligently approach nearer to the actual 
beyond the tomb % The gates between the stars are 
ajar, the ever-flowing river is prepared to convey you 
in perfect safety to the higher shore: Why, then, may 
you not accompany me to an exalted, interior place of 
observation ? Come, let us look and see ! and let us 
listen and hear ! 

But, first, let us inquire : Why should men's minds 
thoughtlessly surrender all ideas of a spiritual existence 
to utter obscurity, or to unreasoning faith ? Or, rather, 
why do not mankind use as much reason, and why are 
£hey not as logical, when thinking about the next world, 
as when thinking of the present ? In yet other words : 
Why doyou 5 involuntarily, exert your mind to make the 
spiritual, unnatipval? ^he true answer is, first, because 
the mind is ordinarily inpline4 to mystify, and, second, 
because you have been taught to think of the after-death 



REALITY OF LIFE IN THE SUMMERLAND. 149 

life as something supernatural, and, therefore, as an 
existence absolutely unhuman and inconceivable. 

Swedenborg, laboring under the prepossessions of 
supernaturalism, although often a telescopic seer, but 
mainly and habitually an impressionist, and in contact 
with both worlds at the same time (which is impracti- 
cable), taught that time and space in the spiritual world 
differed from all human experience of them in this 
world. Distances after death, he said, were caused by 
dissimilarities in the life and affections ; and time was 
longer or shorter, according to vital and afPectional 
changes in the individual ; thus annihilating both time 
and space, except so far as they are a part of subjec- 
tive, not objective, appearance and experience. But in 
other respects Swedenborg recognized the perfect tan- 
gibility and naturalness of the spirit-land. He even 
went so far as to perpetuate, beyond the grave, the 
individual's special earthly surrounding circumstances ; 
also his habits and daily associations ; so that, he af- 
firms, many a man, after death, does not yet know that 
he is dead, but seems to be living on exactly as before. 
Thus Swedenborg, for thirty years, mingled the natural 
and the supernatural — the reasonable and the incom- 
prehensible ; because (see the chapter on " Conscious- 
ness," in the first part of this volume) he undertook 
the impossible task of practically and constantly living 
in and reporting both worlds at the same time. This 
resulted, as such a mixture always must result, in pro- 
jecting and interblending one world with the other. 

The simple truth is always reasonable and sublime. 
And, concerning this question, the truth is, that, as to 
logical coherency, the Summerland is this rudimental 



150 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

Earth-land continued. But, being far more interior 
and infinitely more refined in every form and in each 
external particular, it follows that parts of it resemble 
Saturn's scenery more than ours ; while other sections, 
unspeakably more perfect, exceed in harmony and love- 
liness anything known or imagined upon this or any 
other planet in the universe. 

Nevertheless, as regards the questions of distance 
and duration, or space and time, all interior or meta- 
physical thinkers will concede that there is a special 
sense" in which they are exclusively expressions of states 
and changes of the spiritual consciousness ; even as 
there is a sense or a degree in which " whatever is, is 
right ; " but inasmuch as you cannot conceive of the ori- 
gin of something out of nothing, or the existence of 
effects without preexistent causes, or of a physical 
world of matter which is " no matter," but only a sen- 
sation or an illusion of the mind ; so you cannot con- 
ceive of " another world " without its own appropriate 
sceneries, continents, climates, societies, brotherhoods, 
religions, governments, and where the inhabitants can 
have no other sense of eternity than the flowings of 
" time," and no other sense of infinity than the succes- 
sions of " space." 

Concerning this problem of time and space and 
numbers in the spiritual world, I am moved to ask the 
reader's attention to the last chapter in the volume, 
" Death and the After-Life," wherein is an account (by 
J. Yictor Wilson) of the great pear-shaped " Isle of 
Akropanamede," and also of the wondrous temple of 
antiquities called " Aggameda." The Isle is described 
as most beautiful, and as populated by the " Brother- 



REALITY OF LIFE IN THE SUMMERLAND. 151 

hood of Plana de Alphos," whose members are engaged 
in greatest works of benevolence and art. There is a 
remarkable description given of the architectural form 
and dimensions of the temple. It reminded me of the 
great temple of Solomon ; yet it is exceedingly unlike 
it. But inasmuch as the Order of Masons and Christian 
scholars have figured out the shape and size of the 
ancient King's temple ; also as some have given us the 
dimensions of Noah's Ark, etc., the thought occurred to 
me one day to ask my friend Loomis, a mathematician, 
to kindly favour me with a calculation of the Isle and 
the Temple, on the basis of the (to me) vague and com- 
plicated description imparted by the communicator. 
And the following is the result of his calculations : The 
temple has twenty-one wings, and in each wing seven 
mansions, making a total of one hundred and forty- 
seven. From this estimate it is shown that of domes 
and avenues, including central figures, there are 
twenty-one thousand six hundred and nine ; the num- 
ber of square furlongs covered by the entire templed 
structure, is four hundred and fifty-three thousand seven 
hundred and eighty-nine ; and the dimensions of the 
vast Isle itself, iu English square miles, are nine billion 
seven hundred and five million nine hundred and 
twenty-nine thousand and live hundred and one ; and 
the numbers of men, women and children composing 
that noble Brotherhood, are one billion three hundred 
and eighty-six millions five hundred and sixty thousand 
seven hundred and eighty-six. 

In regard to these figures, my friend in a note says : 
u I hand you these computations about the Isle of 
Akropanamede, which I think are nearly correct, 



152 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

although they may be considered more curious than 
useful." My reply was : " Your computations, if nearly 
correct, are useful as a means of enlarging men's minds 
concerning the immensity of the next human world, 
' not built with hands, eternal in the heavens.' " And 
in order to emphasize this point, I asked him to favor 
me with some familiar comparisons ; and he furnished 
me with the following calculations : " The Isle is con- 
siderably more than two thousand five hundred times 
the size of Europe, or more than eight hundred times 
the size of Africa — over one thousand times the size of 
North America, or about six hundred times the size of 
Asia. It is a country more than ninety-eight thousand 
miles square, or is equal to a Circle over one hundred 
and ten thousand miles in diameter. 

" A line to measure the diameter would pass more 
than four times around the Earth, and this is measuring 
only one Island l of an unnumbered host that diversifies 
the geography of the Summerland ! ' " 

" The above comparisons," adds Mr. Loomis, " with 
familiar continents and with square and circular terri- 
tory, are approximately correct, and the result of con- 
siderable care. I think that the dimensions of Isle and 
Temple deduced from Victor Wilson's statement is 
correct." * 

The flashing rivers of light flow out of the darkness 
of distance. They surge, with pulses of undying music. 
Far away they flow among the flower-covered lands 
in our Heavenly Home. Overhead behold the for- 
ever rolling suns, and the ceaselessly turning planets. 

* The outline of the domes, etc. , of this great temple is quite im- 
perfectly set forth on the left hand of diagram No. 5. 



REALITY OF LIFE IN THE StJMMERLAND. 153 

Through the boundless dome forever sweep the daz- 
zling comets, enveloped in glowing splendors, like the 
flaming angels of God. Like a glorious dream arise 
the fragrances of millions of the loveliest flowers. A 
delightful crystalline light, subdued by the shadows 
of overhanging trees, spreads everywhere from the 
bosom of the rivers, Broad and grand is the landscape 
on every side. Mountains filled with immortal splen- 
dors; among them the homes of unnumbered Brother- 
hoods. Stars rise and set, like suns and moons, over 
very remote lands. Beautiful birds, bright representa- 
tives of affections, pour their music through the soft 
summer air, making even the sweet-breathed roses 
tremulous, and sending musical throbbings through 
the fragrant hearts of whitest lilies. Mounts and 
streams glow with the warmth of overflowing love. 
And the laughing rivers shine with the deathless light 
of divine wisdom. 

Behold ! there is something of importance, situated 
on the right hand, near the river that flows earthward. 
" Invisible ! " you exclaim. What impression do you re- 
ceive ? Oh, the beautiful warm world ! The fruit-laden 
trees and the heavenly groves are dwelling-places for the 
children of God ; and the velvety moss-covered ground 
is a life-imparting floor beneath their beautiful feet. 
And yet, listening, do you not hear ? There is there, 
a high school, a college, a university. There is a vast 
congregation of persons associated with artistic, literary, 
and scientific attractions. They are bound together by 
grateful and profound recollections. Mental freedom, 
graceful moral culture, scientific knowledge, and free 
discussion characterize this august organization. There 
7* 



154 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

is an inner group among them whose use is to report 
tidings frequently received from a more interior uni- 
verse. A beautiful and accomplished goddess is the 
presiding divinity. 

Centuries ago most of them lived on earth — in 
Greece, Rome, Germany, England, France, Scotland, 
Italy. It is a very ancient association, and yet see how 
youthful the wisest appear ! Ah ! there are recent 
arrivals from the earth — clergymen, editors, artists, 
writers, lawyers, statesmen — who, strange as it may 
seem, really appear older than those who lived in the 
days of Plato and Pythagoras. The new arrivals seem 
heavy — of the earth, earthy ; some of them jerk and 
jest ; some display actual folly and great inferiority 
by manifesting importance and highmindedness and 
authority, in the presence of their superiors ; and thus 
most of them easily take outside rank in this celestial 
University. 

Now you behold the gracefulness of best-mannered 
and most unfolded people. Persons you observe 
naturally act from their thoughts; thoughts spring 
out of feelings ; feelings arise from their private 
spiritual condition. Graceful manners are more 
beautiful than handsome faces or glittering gar- 
ments. What a charmed Association is this heavenly 
host ! They gracefully aid all visitors and the new- 
comers; and with equal grace they help mankind 
universally. 

Children throng and play among the blooming 
groves in the rosy background. Their tender imagina- 
tions are fed and nurtured in this natural home of pets 
and poets. There you behold many associations of 



BEAUTY OF LIFE IN THE SUMHERLAND. 155 

mothers watching over and waiting for their unas- 
cended children. They lean their faces with sweetest 
touching atfectionateness against the laughing little 
beauties ; and they seem to be half-listening for infant 
tones and looking for dimples in faces long remem- 
bered. But yet (oh, how wisely !) they love and laugh 
with these happy hearts ; and, although thinking most 
lovingly of their oivn, they nevertheless unrestrainedly 
join the glad groups with joy and song. The rich sig- 
nificance of the woman soul, as angel friend and 
mother is poured like elemental wines into every child's 
bosom. But behold ! Every childish face and eye is 
now lovingly, yearningly looking with a touching, ador- 
ing familiarity (as the highest angels are supposed to 
look at G-od !) toward a lovely lady whose very presence 
is a beauty and a benediction, and whose beaming face 
is quickened and radiant with a divine illumination. 
•■• * "Ma*Abo-sha " is the name I have just heard. 
Did you not hear it '( What does it mean ? " Mother 
of the gods ! " is whispered through the tranquil 
heavens. Angel mother ! I behold your holy families 
all along the distant slopes of the musical mountains. 
Where you are, there are no lost little ones ; where you 
are, there are no orphans and no one is homeless ; all 
are free and happy. 

A gathering of remarkably familiar-looking women 
and men you see at the rear of the great association. 
And there, with three strangers, is one woman I have 
certainly met years ago. For I recall the fluent glance 
of her blue eyes, and the delicate, yet downright and 
sturdy, perceptiveness of her temperament. She stands 
near her husband, and she also stands for woman. She 



156 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

is graceful, intense, severe and fearless ; jet quite 
pleasingly social and exquisitly feminine. 

Hark! There is a conversation. * * * (The last 
sentence was written about thirty minutes ago.) * * * 
The woman's husband is a man whose great childlike 
face you may have seen in New York ; he was not 
long ago one of the busiest of popular editors. Stand- 
ing behind him is his golden-haired son. In an off- 
hand, earnest, conversational manner, he is now ad- 
dressing the group. 

" There are objections to such eleemosynary institu- 
tions," he says ; " and for nearly forty years I used my 
pen and voice against them. Institutional schemes per- 
petuating poverty float over society like a solemn cloud 
that leaves a sense of thunder. I have discussed this 
question with my divine paternity pastor ; who is still 
at it in one and another way. New York could support 
its poor in luxurious idleness out of the money derived 
from licenses granted for the sale of intoxicating 
liquors. A million men, women and children in the 
metropolis taxed and kept in misery to sustain seventy- 
four hundrecL drinking saloons. The island, from end 
to end, is threatened with moral darkness and conse- 
quent social madness. Alcoholic hells blaze with the 
punitive fires that may blight religion and overthrow 
an admittedly corrupt government. Charity is an 
evanescent pity expressing itself hastily in alms. Build 
hospitals for the increasing army of non-productive 
mendicants, and cover the idle and ignorant and 
drunken with benevolent institutions, and the result 
will be the poor and the indolent will forever remain 
on earth. Had I to repeat my busy life, I would rather 



REALITY OF LIFE IN THE STJMMERLAND. 157 

consign myself voluntarily to a penitentiary, or work 
with lamp and pick in a coal mine, than lose an oppor- 
tunity, if I had one, of putting a stop to the manufac- 
ture and sale of those poverty-generating beverages. 
Ignorance and violence, incessant wretchedness in cold, 
hunger and rags, pecuniary embarrassments, miserable 
dependence, involving heart-rending sacrifices of wives 
and husbands, children and homes, often ending in 
bloodshed and pestilence, or famine — all follow the 
daily use of Alcohol. Let them discuss the duty and 
the beauty of charity, either private or eleemosynary — 
it will do no lasting harm. It shall be my duty, how- 
ever, to suggest and to insist upon an organization of 
the industries, with farms and manufactories for Asso- 
ciations of the homeless, idle, ignorant, thriftless." * * 
* * * (A few sentences in the foregoing were lost in 
the act of listening ; but the main part of the conver- 
sational speech as above reported was psychophoni- 
cally heard.) 

Looking southward do you not observe, beneath the 
fruit-bearing trees, an assemblage, a nucleus of some 
vast congregation, of very different characters ? Does it 
seem possible that they were once of the earth earthy % 
Can you believe that time was when each of them walked 
upon the burning sands of Egypt ? Would you think 
they had once heard the desert's call and the river's rip- 
ple in the Oriental part of our earth % It is true. They 
lived before Homer taught in song ; before were built 
the hundred gates of Thebes ; before Pompey's pillar 
was erected ; before Cephrenes and Cheops planned 
the pyramids ; before the magi of the earliest kings 
acquired the power of holding converse with spirits. 



158 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

They lived in the dawn of the pyramid-building age. 
Osiris, Apis, Isis were reigning divinities ; and the star- 
Strewn sky was the field of their contemplations. They 
were the first of earth's astronomers. 

Behold that central figure ! He is an embodiment 
of youth and beauty. (Yet older than the pyramids !) 
His right hand holds the most ancient symbol of uni- 
versal harmony, the lyre ; his long hair flows back, and 
a sacred wreath adorns his fair brow. His adorable 
person is religiously regarded as specially divine. He 
is the prince Apollo among the many recognized author- 
ities in this particular brotherhood. He is the recog- 
nized leader among many peers in this celestial associa- 
tion — a prince, a discoverer, a prophet, a warrior against 
wrong, a saviour of wanderers, the bountiful and quick 
promoter of Light, Health, Poetry, Art, Music. 

This angel-prince, with his associates, first aided 
Poland. They helped that now mournful country to 
become (four hundred years ago) one of the noblest and 
most cultivated countries of Europe. ITopernik (who 
by the Latins was called Copernicus) was born and cul- 
tured under this prince's special guardian superintend- 
ence. Under his inspiring and magnanimous influence 
the youthful Polander made rapid growth in a spiritual 
direction. In 1503 he divided his time between the 
duties of the ministry, in acts of charity, and in study- 
ing the system of the stars. As Moses loved and sought 
the solitudes of Sinai, so this spiritual man loved the 
retirements of the Carpathian mountains. He at length 
erected a tower for the double purpose of interior com- 
munion and astronomical research. And now com- 
menced the manifestations and benefits of this prince's 



REALITY OF LIFE IN THE SUMMERLAND. 159 

guardianship. He succeeded in so illuminating the 
reasoning faculties of Copernicus (or Kopernik) that, 
before the invention of the telescope, and in advance of 
the inductive demonstrations of Galileo, he plainly un- 
folded the substantial truth concerning the underlying 
principles of planetary revolution. 

" Ha-pri-a-nos " comes into my ear, and into my 
thoughts the meaning — " Morning Ambassador ; " which 
is the true name of this august spiritual prince. 

Continuing to observe this beautiful company, I dis- 
cover that they still have beneficent designs upon Poland 
and Russia. They stimulate astronomical research and 
all the finest branches of educational advancement. 
They are angel-ministers out of the sky to whomsoever 
can receive aid from them. Ambassadors of peace 
among professional warriors ; bearers of glad tidings to 
the bowed down and mournful ; messengers of gcod 
words, passing to and fro between heaven and the peo- 
ple of the North. Their system of religion is sidereal. 
The starry realm, overhead and all around them, is the 
temple of the Infinite. Their ideas of heaven, like 
their views of hell, are profoundly astronomical. A 
local heaven or a local hell, they say, is " impossible." 
For they reason that the universe is as profoundly deep 
as it is high ; that in every direction it is equally bound- 
less and inter-coherent ; that nowhere is there any place 
wholly and exclusively appropriated to either the pun- 
ishment of vice or the reward of virtue. 

These are some of the doctrines of a people who lived 
and died on earth prior to the immemorial pyramids ! 
There is among them not one " undevout astronomer ! " 

Far away westward (see diagram Xo. 5) you behold 



160 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

the dim outline of a great forest. It is the heterogene- 
ous wilderness of an almost innumerable multitude of 
Diakka, who may be said to have no religion, and to be 
structurally deficient or weakened in their sense of 
moral responsibility.* 

Some of them are quite learned, quite intellectual, 
and polished in certain manners. There 1 listen, and 
you may hear what one of their brightest orators is now 
uttering: "The non-existence of matter in space is 
a fixed fact. It is another fixed fact that there are no 
facts. Unable to conceive that mind is everlasting, or 
that it has any power to resist dissolution in time, sensi- 
ble men wisely accept as their destiny a final quietus. 
A formless, unknown mass of mentality is their notion 
of God ; and to be at last lost in it, is the sole aspiration 
of the biggest intellects. Gigantic attempts of little 
giants in Monotheism are charming ; so are the panthe- 
istic failures of devout pigmies. It is fun for twenty- 
five centuries to make an intellectual simpleton to im- 
agine himself an immortal God with a universal mission. 
He is immensely happy ! So are we, for we are his in- 
structors. He obeys our will by out-growing in a single 
day all the majesty of Caesar and all the wit of Charle- 
magne. Shakspeare can't hold a candle to light his pen 
in poetry. Our pupil talks sonorously about science, 
and stridently of philosophy. The mysteries of creation 
flee at his approach. He, like us, grows egotistic and 
pluckily independent ! Self-denial for any purpose, a 
conscience with a spur, or love poised upon virtue, he, 



* For a description of these peculiar independents see the Author's 
work entitled " The Diakka, and their Earthly Victims." 



REALITY OF LIFE IN THE SUMMERLAND. 161 

with us, rejects as even more useless and absurd than 
Jonah's gourd which grew and perished in a single 
night." 

You observe that this oratorical Diakka is continuing 
to discourse to the increasing multitude about him. 
But it is the utterance of one who sees nothing nobler, 
purer, higher than the gratification of evanescent im- 
pulses. Although in the Summerland, and although all 
who compose that great wilderness of independents and 
egotists were once in human bodies, yet it is true that 
they realize almost nothing of the divine loveliness and 
angelic purity which surround them and work for their 
advancement on every side. What a field for mission- 
ary labor is here prepared for those who will erelong 
leave the earth, to unite with like disposed persons in 
the supernal associations, to exercise their benevolence 
and most powerful influence to reach and convert these 
brilliant and cunning spiritual gypsies ! 



An hour ago we terminated our seeing and hearing ; 
and now, having returned to the ordinary condition, our 
chapter is ended. In the next I shall record many 
more things upon questions recently awakened. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

A NATURAL HOME NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 

" Talk not of temples ! There is one 

Built without hands, to mankind given ; 
Its lamps are the meridian sun, 

And all the stars of heaven ; 
Its walls are the cerulean sky, 

Its floor the land so green and fair ; 
The dome is vast immensity — 

All Nature worships there. 1 ' 



■Vedder. 



The physical heavens are literally loaded with per- 
spective anomalies. Paradoxical scenes are visible on 
every hand, and (apparently) inconsistent motions are in 
every point of the radius displayed. Moons seem to be 
revolving about their primaries in the wrong way, and 
with varying, fantastic velocities ; while great sun-stars, 
with their countless trains of planets and inferior bodies, 
appear (or seem) to be wandering away into the empty 
abysses of space. 

The Milky Way Galaxy, for example, presents itself 
to the human eye as a figure closely resembling the 
letter Y stretching across the sky at almost right angles 
with the position of the general system. Space-islands 
and empty air-abysses, surrounded with stars, are visible 
in some directions ; and elsewhere you see vast fertile 
star-islands, surrounded by oceans of unoccupied space. 
All this gives the impression that the universe is empty 
and sterile in places, whilst in other localities yielding 



A NATURAL HOME NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 163 

an abundant crop of worlds. (Something of these 
anomalies are indicated in the accompanying diagram.) 

Let it be understood that the external appearance of 
the sky, to an inhabitant of earth, is largely a perspec- 
tive illusion. Men pertinaciously adhere to the mis-im- 
pressions and the consequent deceptions which they de- 
rive from the crude use of their senses. It is not easy 
for a man to believe that stellar contradictions fre- 
quently arise from the appearances impressed perspec- 
tively upon the ordinary spectator. 

For illustration, the Y-shaped Galaxy is an appearance 
only, made upon our eyes because of the exceedingly 
sidewise position we on earth occupy relatively to the 
great star-belt. We here exist upon the confines of the 
universe composing the sixth circle. Therefore, although 
light is a fleet traveller, we have not yet lived long 
enough on earth to receive a ray of light from the more 
interior circles of suns which occupy what to our bodily 
senses and telescopes are but yawning chasms of utter 
nothingness ! And it is because we contemplate the 
exceedingly remote Milky Way cluster from a side po- 
sition, that it seems to be divided in places ; and it is 
also because of this that it nowhere suggests (what it 
really is) a part of a girdling system of suns and inhabi- 
table worlds. 

In order to give some faint idea of relative propor- 
tions and distances we must present a section of the 
Summerland as a strip of indefiniteness, stretching 
horizontally beneath the immeasurable, overhanging 
circles of constellations, or star-fields, which contain 
many clusters of constellations. On the extreme right 
hand you observe our Sun (S.) and the dependent plan- 



164: VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

ets and satellites scattered about ; while on the left you 
behold the great solar mother, Alcyone (A.), toward 
which our system is now travelling. 

To an inhabitant of any one of the myriads of worlds 
possessed with the adequate telescopic vision, the spiri- 
tual belt appears to be thick, or thin, or straight, or 
spherical, each appearance being in accordance with 
the perspective phenomena generated from his point of 
observation. For example, the space occupied by the 
Milky Way seems to mankind to be comparatively nar- 
row and thin, with stars in places ; yet there are in those 
thin places bright bodies whose diameters, not to im- 
agine their circumferences, are not less than one hun- 
dred and twenty billions of miles ! Let this be remem- 
bered reverentially when you gaze upon the thin-looking 
Milky Way. And yon will also bear in mind that the 
flashing light consumes hundreds of years in reaching the 
earth from the Pleaides; and that our sun, which speeds 
through space at the rate of eight miles a second, re- 
quires eighteen million and two hundred thousand 
years to journey once around its parental centre (A.), 
which is visible in the firmament above. It may also 
be profitable to remember that if a man could walk one 
hundred miles a day, from the moment of his birth to 
that of his death, he would consume eighty years in 
walking once around our familiar sun ! These serious 
reflections will prepare your mind for the entertainment 
of enlarged views of the extent and possessions of our 
Heavenly Home. 

A word more concerning perspective observation. 
Objects nearest you appear to move rapidly, while re- 
mote objects appear very slowly to alter their positions 



A NATITKAL HOME NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 165 

— the furthest appearing to be almost absolutely station- 
ary. For example, walk in a field beside a grove of 
scattering tall pines. As you advance, keeping your 
eyes upon them, they seem continually to be altering 
their relative positions. Those standing nearest you 
seem to be moving rapidly, and frequently intersecting 
and sometimes eclipsing similar trees behind, while 
those at the greatest distance from you seem to be 
almost fixed. And their top branches seem to sweep 
over a large expanse of sky. But in reality the trees 
are stationary, and you alone make the movement and 
changes. 

The earth's distance from the Spiritual Sphere alters 
according to its orbital position in its annual journey 
around the sun. Sometimes the space is only about 
fifty millions of miles across. At other times, when the 
earth is near the opposite end of the ellipse, it is nearly 
four times more distant. But over our greatest distance 
the sunlight can travel in sixteen minutes. And al- 
though, as I have already shown, the tide of the celes- 
tial river sometimes flows as fast as light, and in certain 
localities even faster, yet the shortest time occupied is 
one hour and twenty-five minutes in a bodily journey 
from earth to the nearest shore. Of course to localities 
more remote — which by affinity belong to, and are 
sought by, the earth's inhabitants after death — the dis- 
tance is proportionally increased, sometimes to nearly 
two hundred millions of miles. 

We have now and thus arrived at an important an- 
swer to many strange facts and curious questions. It is 
a fact, for instance, that we rarely obtain intelligence 
directly from persons who lived in the most ancient 



166 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

ages of human history. It is a fact, too, that many modern 
philosophers have not given, since their death, an atom 
of evidence that they even now exist. They have de- 
parted this life, and not having spoken, with conclusive 
power and with manifest presence, they seem " dead n 
in the literal sense of that appalling term. Millions 
and billions and trillions of persons once on earth seem to 
be literally lost in space or annihilated. For they have 
made no sign of life ! These are really startling facts. 

I might now appeal to the dry science of mathema- 
tics to enliven this progressive problem. But the human 
mind does not comfortably live on conceptions of dis- 
tances and magnitudes. If it could live on such a figu- 
rative diet, if it could refresh itself upon the weary 
wastes of mathematical calculations, I could now fur- 
nish every hungry mind with an inexhaustible feast. 
And this great feast of figures would answer many of 
the questions raised by these fearfully suggestive facts. 
But we will not spread the table with oppressive esti- 
mates. Instead, we give you a few affirmations based 
upon figures already presented. 

You remember the estimated and accepted distance 
in miles between the Pleiades and our solar system ? 
And you recall the almost eternity of time consumed by 
our sun in travelling once around that remote constella- 
tion '{ Remembering and recalling all this (although 
you and I know that no human mind can realize the 
fact), you will now try to imagine another fact, that 
that inconceivable distance is one of the favorite jour- 
neys taken by many of the brightest minds who have 
lived on earth. It is accomplished both by land and 
stream, and also by atmospheric excursions. It is, so to 



A NATURAL HOME NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 167 

speak, the grand fashionable trip across the heavenly 
Atlantic and through the continent of the celestial Eu- 
rope. And it is very frequently undertaken from very 
similar motives — to gratify taste, curiosity, the eternal 
love of newness, and, incidentally, for ends of best uses 
and culture. Here, we say that three thousand miles 
intervene between the two shores of the ocean. Time is 
consumed in the journey, and more time is required to 
write letters, and to communicate with loving friends 
left behind. Five hundred years are occupied in the 
trip of light between those not very remote clusters and 
our human eyes! What do you think, then, is the 
length of time required by leisurely or industrious 
artists, astronomers, florists, geologists, investigators of 
all branches, theologians, poets, magicians, lovers of 
nature, conjugal lovers, missionaries, teachers of every 
religion, and the leading minds of every country and 
government — yea, how much time (how much of eter- 
nity !) do such persons and such mentalities require to 
make a single journey through some of the distant man- 
sions of the Father's infinite temple ? 

" But," you exclaim, " does a spirit require space to 
exist in ? And time to go from place to place ? " Abso- 
lutely, yes ! " Thoughts " concerning a subject may 
be said to be inconceivably rapid. But this is not 
true ; for they take time, and the very seconds thereof 
can be and have been correctly numbered. But a spirit 
is not a thought. Spirit is not an idea. Spirit is the 
nucleus of a man, or of a woman — a personal, bodily, 
substantial existence ; and like every other body, space 
is indispensable to its presence, and time is required for 
its movement from one place to another. What men 



168 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

term Attraction and Repulsion, Gravitation, etc., are 
but the names of specific motions in what is called 
" matter ; " so the term Spirit is but the name of an 
invisible " substance," the nucleus for the organization 
of less refined elements about it, poised upon the pivo- 
tal will-power, and thus becomes an individual as 
natural and as human after death as we are after birth. 
(In other connections I have given other answers to 
some of these questions, but none that is inconsistent 
with the foregoing.) 

Let us digress for a few moments, just here, to fix 
with immense emphasis, if such an effect upon your 
judgment be possible, that in these chapters language is 
used, for the most part, with its fullest and most defi- 
nite significance. 

When I say that the interval between our sun and 
the star-cluster Pleiades is "inconceivable," that is 
exactly what is meant. No intellect can possibly con- 
tain the stupendous fact as a realization / although it- 
may be computed accurately, and presented in figures. 
This denial of your incapacity may shock your pride, 
but it will enlarge and strengthen your candor ; and it 
may give you some correct impressions concerning what 
is meant by the terms " eternal progression." When I 
say that this or that is " incomprehensible," the term is 
used with its exact meaning. Think a moment, and you 
will acknowledge that, while you may say from memory 
that the apparently empty space between the earth 
and the sun is ninety-five millions of miles, your mind 
does not contain the statement as a consciousness* It 

* In this volume no attempt at strict calculations of times, mag- 
nitudes, and distances, is made ; because there is as yet no positive 



A NATURAL HOME NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 169 

is solely and mechanically a matter of intellect, which 
works among facts and figures as a mechanic works 
with his tools ; next, the statement enters into your 
memory, which is a mental writing-desk well supplied 
with pigeon-holes for the safe-keeping of important 
memoranda ; but your consciousness cannot intuitively 
accept it as a self-evident realization. All your soul 
receives from the intellectual statement is a feeling of 
an oppressively immense " distance." And this feeling 
is capable of an indefinite expansion, until it begins to 
urge the intellect to contemplate the incomprehensible. 

The incomprehensible is a thought which passes in 
society under the name of " infinity," which starts (in 
the child mind) with a few inches or a mile, and then 
progresses with experience until thousands grow into 
millions, millions into billions, billions into trillions, 
&c. ; or until numbers multiply beyond the possibility 
of mathematical expression, and then, when the word 
is rightly used, the intellectual result is called the " in- 
finite." 

From this disgression I return to the subject of 
human occupation, travelling, and progression, in our 
next natural Home among the holy stars. 

We sometimes read — especially in some of the earlier 
newspapers and pamphlets devoted to "communica- 
tions" with the departed — of intelligence being re- 
ceived through mediums from spirits in the fifth, sixth, 

knowledge among astronomers ; some say that the sun is less than 
ninety-five millions ; others that it is more distant ; but the greatest 
discoveries concerning the nature and speed of light, and, therefore, 
as to the magnitude and distances of the sun and planets, are erelong 
to dawn upon the world. 
8 



170 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

or even " seventh sphere." * But how does this claim 
seem to you while you fail to realize the interval (of 
both time and space) between the earth and our sun's 
great mother, Alcyone ? What do you think when you 
are told this truth, namely : The stellar distance just 
mentioned, when compared with the whole magnitude 
of the Summerland, is the distance between New York 
and Buffalo compared to the earth's whole circumfer- 
ence? Now think how many thousands, yea, how 
many millions of human beings are born, bred, ma- 
tured, and buried within the limited space which sepa- 
rates these two American cities ! How many men and 
women — some of them very high in society and cul- 
ture — who live a long life without travelling three 
thousand miles from Paris, London, Liepzig, St. Peters- 
burg, or even one hundred leagues from the country 
and localities in which they were born and nurtured \ 
Suppose now that, instead of dying at the end of three- 
score and ten years, these same men and women had 
lived through as many centuries : In what respect, or 
from what new causes, - would they become greater 
travellers % How far from the home of their childhood 
did the earth's early tribes or races journey during hun- 
dreds and thousands of years % America, so to speak, 
is a discovery of yesterday ! 

And while I write, although the earth has been in- 
habited tens upon tens of thousands of years, and real 
human progress has been steadily realized during all 
these vast stretches of time ; yet no human feet have 
ever stood upon the globe's north centre, and many 

* In the Appendix this question will receive additional attention. 



171 



t\. •'"• ^asR^^'-i'^ 




hivli^A^i 1 ^ 



172 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

mountains have never yet been climbed by man, and 
millions of square miles of our common earth are yet 
to be sought and explored ! 

With these fundamental facts in human nature and 
in human history, and from which human nature as 
long as it shall exist will never radically depart, I ask 
(those who question me) what think you of your pro- 
clivities and opportunities to be sufficiently " enter- 
tained " and " occupied " and " advanced," after you 
shall have become a resident of the Supernal Sphere % 

You now very naturally ask : " What shall we do 
when we shall progress, become perfect, and know it 
all ? " My reply is : Your question originates in a lack 
of comprehending thought. You shall never reach the 
era when your mind can comprehend itself ! You may 
now realize only ordinary mental weakness and intel- 
lectual emptiness. Or, if you be a physiologist, or a 
phrenologist, or a chemist, or an anthropologist, or a 
scientific explorer and an expounder, why you may even 
to-day affirm, in all candor, that " you know it all." I 
tell you, nevertheless, that, in very truth, you think and 
talk like a child. You manifest a child's folly and a 
child's unblushing conceit. And I tell you further, that, 
after you have lived your best life in the " Second 
Sphere " for as many centuries as this earth has been 
inhabited, you will " put away childish (foolish) things " 
out of your affections and understanding ; and then, 
having really become " a little child," in the heavenly 
sense of the word, you will say : " Come to me, comfort 
me, O Mother of the Universe! lead me to thy magi- 
cal mirror, wherein I may behold at least the reflections 
of my ignorance. And, O Father of the Universe, 



A NATUKAL HOME NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 173 

assist me and strengthen me, direct and control me, and 
let me forsake my littleness, and show me how to seek 
for true knowledge and wisdom. I would love all loveli- 
ness, and I would take delight in the truth. Come to 
me, O Friend of my earth-life ! O Life of my youth ! 
show me the sunlight and the starlight as they exist in 
you. Lead me into the sacred shade ; dwell with me 
in the fountains ; stay with me in the sunshine ; wander 
with me through the mansions of glory ; walk with me 
in your boundless gardens ; teach me to lift up the de- 
spairing; and to strengthen the weak. Vast is my 
knowledge of my ignorance. Oh, lead me out of this- 
darkness ! I have magnified myself until I realize my 
commonness and my littleness. Oh, let me not dwell 
in this darkness while the universe is flooded with 
light." 

Astounding revelation to make to the reader, who, 
being a full-blooded impatient American, intends to 
enter upon a headlong life of lightning progression im- 
mediately after death ! 

Ah, I now discern the cause of your astonishment. 
It is because of your real ignorance concerning what is 
meant by eternal progression. Now, being an Ameri- 
can-born reader, I know this assertion of your " igno- 
rance " will be hurled back with a great force upon 
me. You think that you are bound to " get all you can ; " 
and that your mental treasury is so constructed that you 
will be always able " to keep all you get." And by this 
straightforward accumulativeness you will at some time, 
in the great future, acquire all the love, and wisdom, 
and knowledge existing in God's universe — in short, 
that your mind and God's mind will, in possessions and 



174 VIEWS OF OTTR HEAVENLY HOME. 

attributes, be equals and compeers ! Of course, logi- 
cally speaking, as there will be no further possible pro- 
gression, and as there will be nothing further to " enter- 
tain " or to " occupy " your full-blossomed powers, and 
lest the " time " may begin to hang too heavily upon your 
perfect spirit, why, to make the story short, you con- 
clude to plunge into the bottomless vortex of central life, 
and to commit an eternal suicide ! This destination, ex- 
pressed in many forms of language, is what millions of 
mankind vaguely dread ; and it is an " absorption " of 
the soul which thousands firmly believe, and religiously 
regard as the acme of perfect happiness. 

Eternal progression of the individual, when justly 
comprehended, is — to speak paradoxically — a truth be- 
yond all comprehension ; which is another way of say- 
ing this: Eternity is an impossible conception, except as 
it is divided up into " times," just as Infinity is incom- 
prehensible, except as it is divided up into " spaces." 
Therefore eternal progression means to a man's mind, 
and always must mean, an endless succession of periods, 
eras, or ages, through which his mind makes pilgrim- 
ages, retaining and maintaining his identuy by memory 
of only the substance or essences of all his experiences ; 
but perpetually losing memory of the details of every 
experience ; thus forever keeping the universe new, his 
spiritual appetites for universal feeding forever healthy, 
and his aspirations eternally youthful towards the whole, 
and away through into all its countless parts and varie- 
ties. So the human mind, like the sun, has its aphe- 
lions and perihelions ; it travels to the extreme of its 
orbit in one great Sphere ; then it retraces its steps back 
to its centre; and then, planet-like, it starts iminedi- 



A NATURAL HOME NOT MADE WITH HANDS. 175 

ately out upon another journey through the boundless 
fields of an unfathomable Univercoelum. 

This chapter should give you the impression that no 
human mind can comprehend a millionth part of what 
there is to see, to meet, to feel, to hear, and to know, even 
in the next or Second Sphere ; and that, so far as is yet 
known, no person born on earth has ever advanced 
beyond its inconceivably vast boundaries. But the Love, 
Will, and Wisdom focus of the Summerland is in sym- 
pathetic correspondence to the Great Positive Centre of 
the infinite whole. This is a focus of essential princi- 
ples where all, when mentally prepared, may go for uni- 
versal information. It is a focus of mental progression 
and spiritual truth ; which must be sought by love and 
absorbed by wisdom ; from which very extensive and 
correct knowledge of the possessions of far higher 
spheres may be derived. 

To this spiritual sun, to this centre, I go for informa- 
tion ; and by contact with it, while in the superior con- 
dition, I receive impressions. 



CHAPTEK X. 

WONDERFUL SCENES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 

" How beautiful the burst of holy light ! 
How beautiful the day that has no night I 
Who shrinks from Death ? Come when he will or may, 
The night he brings will bring the risen day : 
His call — his touch — we neither seek nor shun : 
His life is ended when his work is done/' 

—S. C. Rail. 

The principal object of these " Stellar Key " volumes 
is, first, to discuss the possibility and to demonstrate 
the certainty of an inhabitable zone within the starry 
heavens adapted to mankind's existence and progressive 
happiness after death; and second, by a few brief 
generalizations, to show the process whereby the con- 
stitution of that zone was evolved and incessantly fed 
by what I am impressed to term " humanized atoms ; " 
by which I mean those earthly materials which, having 
been suitably refined " in the mills of God," the high- 
est of which is the human body, ascend to and become 
the actual foundation and formative substance of our 
Heavenly Home. 

At this point a questioner appears with these prob- 
lems : 

" On page 107 of the ' Key' is the following statement : ' Innumer- 
able atoms arise and continually ascend from the bodies of persona 



WONDERFUL SCENES IN THE SUMMEKLAND. 177 

composing- the human family (not less than 800,000,000 tons per 
annum) ; atoms that float out into space in the rivers of ether, and 
enter into the constitution of the Summerland. This process has 
been long known to seers.' 

" It is also stated in the same work, p. 135, that ' the second sphere 
is the daguerreotype of earth ; the refined matter which ascends is 
prone to assume the forms from which it was liberated on earth. 
The scenery is more beautiful and ethereal. Trees, fruits and flow- 
ers are not individualized ; that is, their emanations do not ascend 
to the spheres in an identified form, but their particles are more 
prone to assume such forms than any other.' * * * * * * 

" It is not stated how long the emanations from human forms and 
inanimate substances of the earth have been ascending to the 
spheres ; but if they are ascending now, the process must have been 
going on for an indefinite period — many ages — in the past. 

" Assuming that there are 1,000,000,000 of human inhabitants on 
the earth, of all ages and sizes — probably not far from the actual 
number — and that their average weight is one hundred pounds each 
— probably a liberal estimate — their combined weight would be fifty 
million tons of two thousand pounds ; just one sixteenth part, if my 
estimate is correct, of the emanations annually given off from 
human bodies, to be floated away to the spheres. How is this vast 
and rapid waste of human bodies supplied ?****** 

' ' Again, it may be reasonably assumed that the emanations from all 
other earthly substances, brutes, fowls, trees, flowers, minerals, etc., 
are at least equal to those from human bodies. This would give 
one thousand six hundred million tons of substantial, though refined, 
matter annually transported from the earth to distant spheres and 
appropriated there ; a vast amount, even compared with the entire 
substance of the earth. Is this waste supplied or returned to the 
earth in any manner ? If so, how, and from whence ? 

(Signed) A. T. S." 



Answer* — Let ns first understand one another. In 
the book " Stellar Key? when speaking of the atomic 
emanations ascending from the " human family." I did 
not intend that the reader should think that reference 

8* 



178 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

was made solely to the population of our particular 
earth. For the truth is that all of the races of men 
who are living on the several globes in our " island 
solar system," are equally and unreservedly taxed, phy- 
siologically speaking ; and thus all human natures 
everywhere throughout the earths of the sixth circle 
are compelled, under the prompt demands of chemical 
laws (for these laws are merciless tax-gatherers), to de- 
liver up with every tick of the watch a portion of their 
atomic substance. These universal and incessant emana- 
tions, like the ethereal dewdrops of insensible perspira- 
tion, in total weight cannot be less than eight hundred 
millions of tons per annum. And the speed and pre- 
cision with which these taxes — these humanized atoms 
of elements in the human body — fly off to their celes- 
tial destinations, is far more wonderful than any mira- 
cle reported in Christianity. A series of chemical 
changes thus incessantly occur between every human 
body and the physical constitution of the Snmmerland ! 
To my eyes they seem like a fire running along count- 
less trains of gunpowder. And yet so perfectly and 
absolutely natural, so still, so inwrought and undeviat- 
ingly common (or ordinary) is all this, that not a per- 
son, unless sensitive as a medium or seeing as a clair- 
voyant, is at all conscious of any such wondrous chemi- 
cal transactions in the universe about him. 

Concerning the problem of " waste and supply " in 
Nature there is an immutable law, which should first 
be consulted. The rate at which nervous motor sensi- 
bility travels in your body this moment is about one 
hundred and eleven feet per second ! Of course this 
rate of motion is different at different times in the same 



WONDERFUL SCENES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 179 

person ; and in different individuals the speed is varia- 
ble, owing in all cases to the prevailing temperature, 
and to the nature and extent of the exciting cause. 
(Therefore thought, which is the result of sensation, is 
not inconceivably rapid.) In some circumstances the 
vital force can travel over a nerve at the enormous rate 
of three hundred and fourteen feet per second. Now 
couple with this another fact, namely, that the univer- 
sal familiar energy called electricity can speed away as 
stilly as a baby's breathing at the frightful rate of 
eighty -nine thousand five hundred miles per second, or 
more than three times around our great globe in a sin- 
gle beat of your pulse — with this fact, added to the 
first, can you not understand that it is just as easy for 
billions and trillions of tons of matter to hasten from 
the inexhaustible resources of the infinite immensity to 
the earth and to other earths, to the human family here 
and on other globes — just as easy, to say nothing of the 
scientific rationality of the proposition, as that a like 
quantity of refined and purified matter should emanate 
from the earth, and from the human family in general, 
and enter into the composition and deathless constitu- 
tion of the supernal sphere ? 

In connection with this problem of waste and supply, 
I am frequently stopped with the questions : " How do 
the people — commonly called spirits — personally look, 
or appear, to an observer \ Are they always dressed f 
And in what style ? And, again, do they eat f If so, 
what is their food ? and how do they perform their 
functions ? And do they prolificate, bearing children," 
ect., etc. 

Answers to many of these questions have already 



180 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

been published, which I will not here repeat.* But I 
have some important physiological facts to record, just 
here, which will cover a large field of curious vital 
truth, and may be of value in this world. 

And first, in general, as to the law of progress or 
growth in matter and mind. Later teachers use the 
word " evolution." Take this law to guide you, and 
you can begin with a seed and follow it through succes- 
sive evolutionary changes until it has ultimated into a 
full grown tree ; or you may trace the series of progres- 
sive developments which occur between the primal 
cell, or ovum, and the perfectly unrolled physical organ- 
ization. This doctrine of universal spiral evolution, 
after waiting thirty years, is advocated by the ablest 
intellects. 

In the progression of Nature, as I have before said — 
from the lowest living substance to the complex and 
final organization of man — everything follows the prin- 
ciple of evolution. The lowest is radical, because it is 
the root ; the highest is fruition, becauseit is the perfect 
unfold ment. In the germ, or " protoplasm " — as the 
primal substance is called by the scientific Huxley — is 
deposited the properties and potencies necessary for the 
development and regulation of that particular organism, 
in its various progressive steps up the spiral ascent of 
Nature. The visible process is that of progressive 
development. And as all below man is thus regulated 
and unfolded, reason asks : " Why may not the body of 
the spirit follow the same divine principle?" If the 



* See "Answers to Ever-recurring Questions; " also the "Pene- 
tralia," and several works by authors on Spiritualism. 



WONDERFUL SCENES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 181 

material universe ripens up into the full-orbed organi- 
zation of man, M Why may not man's spirit be likewise 
invested or clothed with the ultimate organs- of evo- 
lution, with all defects eliminated % " 

Reason puts no questions which she is not capable of 
answering. The interior Sphinx puts no riddles she 
cannot herself solve. Reason, when in her superior 
condition, and the universal common sense of the 
world, affirm, that the continuation of human existence 
after death is no more improbable or wonderful than its 
continuation after birth. And moreover that the prin- 
ciple of progress is immortal ; and evolution is its 
mode of action throughout eternal spheres ; which, 
therefore, must yield the true explanation concerning 
the appearance of the body of the spirit in the Summer- 
land. 

Physiologists know that there are parts and organs 
in man's body, like certain csecal appendages to the in- 
testines, and like the spleen itself, which do not perform 
any important offices ; in other words, they are the 
remnants of a lower stage of organism through which 
mankind have passed. And the time will come when, 
by the operations of the evolutionary law, these and 
other parts of the existing human form will be dimin- 
ished and overcome and utterly destroyed. For do you 
not know that the animals are organic stepping-stones 
upon which minerals and vegetables ascend to the de- 
velopment of the physical man % 

" See dying vegetables life sustain, 
See life dissolving vegetate again." 

It is well known that since mankind's advent, many 



182 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

species and varieties of animals have become extinct. 
Now is it not as reasonable to believe that when the 
human race shall have become sufficiently refined and 
spiritualized to no longer need or feed upon animals, 
they will all disappear from the globe ? And may not 
internal parts of the human body likewise disappear ? 
Animals are to the erection and completion of the 
human kingdom what scaffoldings are to the construc- 
tion of a dwelling. When the structure is finished the 
builders remove the various instrumentalities, so that 
other and higher artisans may proceed with the finer 
works ; and after the gardens are prepared, the decora- 
tions completed, and the furniture arrayed, it is then 
natural to expect and welcome the angel of the house. 
And if animals are man's indispensable predecessors 
and subordinates, are they not fully entitled to human 
sympathy and uniform kindness ? 

In the Summerland some of the vital organs and 
other portions which are no longer needed, do not ap- 
pear within the spiritual body. There are no fluids re- 
quiring kidneys ; no negative or broken-down blood re- 
quiring pulmonary air cavities ; no physical digestion 
requiring such organs as stomach, liver and intestines ; 
no propagation requiring the external organs of gener- 
ation. ; consequently, the body of the spirit appears, 
both male and female, in the most perfect bodily shape, 
preserving all the symmetry and intrinsic excellences 
and ultimate likeness of our best-blossomed human 
form ; which is sometimes clothed and sometimes not, 
in accordance with the customs of the society, or the 
peculiarities of the latitude in which they find their 
habitations. But the ultimates of all the organs are 



WONDEEFtJL SCENES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 183 

preserved in perfect form ; and they perform spiritual 
uses corresponding to the natural body.* 

With regard to their foods, and how they eat, etc., 
your attention is asked to the difference between a mor- 
tal body and the body incorruptible. The ultimates of 
the natural only exist in the spiritual. All incomplete- 
ness, all imperfection, all that is not of eternal use, is 
eliminated. There are hundreds and thousands of feet 
of threads in the mortal body, which are called nerves 
and also cellular tissues. These tissues are the natural 
protectors and the natural feeders of all the membranes, 
and of all the vital parts ; and to this end they also ex- 
ist universally beneath the skin ; which is the seamless 
garment covering the entire living temple. 

Now, having said so much as a basis, I come to my 
cardinal affirmation — that, throughout all the ages of 
eternity, all human (or angel) feeding and all breathing 
among the elements of eternal beauty and youth, is 
accomplished by and through the mediumship of what 
in the physical body we erroneously term the " nerves " 
and the cellular " tissues." Youth and health are eter- 
nal ; because there is a perpetual exchange of these 
elements, causing and continually maintaining an ever- 
lasting equilibrium between the body and the spirit. 
Sickness, old age, death, can never be known where 
exists this perfect and just interchange, and this unalter- 
able equilibrium. 

In evidence of the possibility of what I have said, 
your memory and judgment are referred to a few ter- 

* In the Appendix the reader will find the author's answer to an 
esteemed correspondent on this questiou. 



184 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

restrial instances of cellular and nerve feeding. The 
Seeress of Prevorst was a remarkable example, who 
was under the protection of her heavenly guardians. 
But do you not recall instances in our day and country, 
where young women (because their nerves and tissues 
are far finer than man's) have lived days, weeks, and 
even months, without eating anything substantial, and 
sometimes, also, wholly abstaining from drinking ? Their 
breathing, however, went on all the same, but, in some 
cases, all the bodily functions were permanently sus- 
pended. And yet, because the patient partook of spir- 
itual meat which only the angels know, the physical 
body did not rapidly waste away, and the physiological 
wonder grew among men, greater and greater, day by 
day. These cases on earth are crude illustrations of 
eating, drinking, and breathing, in the Summerland. 



Concerning wonderful scenes and structures. — Re- 
suming our celestial observations, we pass beyond the 
Diakka Reservation, where congregate the bright- witted, 
the striving, the skeptical, the- darkness loving, the sun- 
set-haunted. We look beyond the color-line where the 
dark luxuriance ceases and the reign of light and 
loveliness begins. You behold a vast continent of what 
may be called Religiousness. 

We stand almost beneath the path in which our sun 
rolls on its journey toward the Pleiades. The charac- 
teristics of the landscape surprise you ; for these realms 
are unlike anything terrestrial. The far-away fields of 
mossy green and twinkling gold, flowers, and the im- 
mense mansion-like chapels and pavilion -looking cathe- 



WONDERFUL SCENES IN THE STJMMEKLAND. 1S5 

drals, decorated with myriads of shadowy vines, remind 
you faintly of scenes upon the planet Saturn. Bright, 
billowy topped trees, and velvety, white paths between, 
and solemn, anthemnal music filling and thrilling the 
whole with a feeling of unutterable sacredness ; and 
processions of thoughtful men and women, and long 
lines of persons who (you can easily see) were once halt 
and sick and maimed and deaf and dumb and blind, 
and groups of singing, and worshipping children — all 
impress you as a new world created in the heavens, 
designed for those who are wholly devoted to " the love 
and worship of God." 

The castle-like chapels and the cathedral-looking tem- 
ples are the dwelling places of grave and dignified 
hosts, who were ®nce Popes, Prelates, Bishops, Cardi- 
nals, Priests, founders of Secret Orders, Saints, and 
Dignitaries from every kingdom and principality that 
ever existed since the foundation of human history. 
Embowered and sheltered, throughout a vast continent 
of great natural beauty, and pervaded with a feeling 
of solemnity, these ecclesiastical associations are glori- 
ous and well-nigh irresistible. Here you behold the 
immemorial holiness and awfulness of what, in religion, 
is called " very ancient." The sacred clouds of the 
world's many past ages hang over the gates of every 
half-hidden sanctuary. Here you recall the poet's line 
— " The splendor falls on castle walls, and snowy sum- 
mits old in story ; " but you substitute for " snowy " the 
literal word shadowy ; for the slumbers of ten thousand 
centuries seem packed away in these structures. 

There is a painful, oppressive pleasure in contempla- 
ting these impressive, these massive, these harmonious 



186 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

aggregations of solemn antiquities. I look at them with 
a feeling like that awakened by standing beneath great 
oak trees of gigantic diameters, with tops lifted majes- 
tically away up into the calm, clear sky, compared with 
which one's own dwarfed and insignificant stature is as 
a grain of sand lying silent at the foot of the mighty 
mountain. The effect is instructive and benignly enno- 
bling. Annihilation in God, or the momentary and 
delightful loss of one's personal existence in the ocean- 
spirit of the Infinite, is the feeling now suggested. 
There is a strain of mournful music stealing through 
all these wonderful time-crowned structures. The 
domes of vast cathedrals, the turrets of temples, the 
spires of consecrated homes, impress one with the feel- 
ing that "there are many mansions " in the supernal 
Home. 

From the examples of sacred precedent, and from a 
slowly broadening system of ecclesiastical government, 
these great societies of Religiousness exert very wonder- 
ful influences upon the human family, whether on earth, 
in the Summerland, or upon the nearest approachable 
planets. In their united strength they send forth upon 
the golden and purple seas of human life a fulness and 
a diffusiveness of religious warning and aspiration — 
an influence that moves millions, as if it were a breath 
from the very mouth of God himself. Their great 
empire stretches from northeast to southwest, pervading 
a country almost as large as the entire dry land of earth. 
And their history is coeval with that of the human race. 
Individual freedom — the gratification of the private 
will — occupies a trifling point ; the unification of man- 
kind " in one faith and one baptism " is their settled 



WONDERFUL SCENES IN THE SITMMEELAND. 187 

mission ; and the steady progress they make from age 
to age sufficiently attests their earnestness and success. 

" What ! " you exclaim, " is all this in the Summer- 
land ? " Truly all this is in the world after death ; 
where freedom for every sincere conviction is univer- 
sally assured. 

" Why do they not open their eyes, use their reason, 
aud see their errors ? " you ask. 

For the same reason, I reply, that they did not open 
their eyes, or use their reason upon themselves, while 
they were in this world. They believed while on earth, 
and they still believe, that what they did not then have, 
or what they do not now know, is practically unattainable 
and unknowable. The spirit of love, the sprit of beauty, 
the spirit of wisdom, and the spirit of worship, they be- 
lieve they alone possess in true form and in largest 
abundance. What better can they dc than as mission- 
aries, and as heaven ordained ambassadors of the ever- 
lasting truth, to reach out their philanthropic hands full 
of salvation for mankind wherever found % Do you 
think that you can " convert " any one of them to the 
acceptance of your convictions ? If so, suppose you 
begin to-morrow upon your nearest ecclesiastical neigh- 
bor. When you cause him, in the full blaze of the 
science and reason of the ninteenth century, to open his 
eyes, and to see with them what and as you do, then 
you may with more consistency inquire why there are 
sects in the Heavenly Home. (You will remember 
that the opening of the spiritual senses, as an immediate 
consequence of death, is not necessarily followed by a 
corresponding opening of the affections, will, and under- 
standing.) 



188 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

Behold the religious habitations of the representatives 
of every imaginable sect scattered all over another great 
section, which is as large as the continent of Asia. 
Look now far away to the southeast of the renowned 
and solemnly magnificent associations and brotherhoods 
which we have just contemplated.* The heavenly 
country in this section is ineffably glorious ! The plains, 
and valleys, and groves, and fountains, and sparkling 
rivers of living water, exceed in degrees of beauty and 
holy loveliness all verbal expression. The different sects 
are fraternizing, and seem animated with feelings of mu- 
tual affinity, being engaged in a common purpose, 
namely : In the great work of saving mankind from 
endless desolation, and in promoting, thorough grace and 
regeneration, the desirable ends of universal purifica- 
tion and refinement. 

It was a perception of this, doubtless, that impressed 
Swedenborg to affirm that, in all the heavens, the 
" word " was recognized and read in its true spiritual 
and celestial sense, and in the ancient language of cor- 
respondence ; for there, in yonder vast northeastern 
continent of most advanced sectarian religions, you 
behold profound veneration for what upon earth is 
called " God's truth," or " Bible truth ; ,J and, most re- 
markable to relate, some of the assembled congregations 
are this moment receiving instructions from men who 
on earth were distinguished clergymen, discoursing 
upon themes involving a figurative translation of parts 
of the New Testament! Camp-meetings and grove - 



♦Allusion to these sects may be found in the volume, " Death and 
the After-Life. " 



WONDERFUL SCENES IN THE SUMMEELAND. 189 

gatherings of the different forms of religion, all upon a 
Bible basis, seem to be almost the only thought and pur- 
pose of the countless multitudes.* " Religion is the 
chief concern " of immortals who, not enlightened upon 
great and most interior principles, and finding that they 
yet have time given them to " make their election sure," 
give themselves up to the most incessant industry 
among each other, also as missionaries to all accessible 
earths in their universe. Beholding all this splendor and 
gorgeousness in the country of the " house of many 
mansions," and especially realizing how intellectually 
contracted, and how spiritually honest and faithful 
withal, all sectarians naturally are — even after death, 
when many men and women become very beautiful 
spirits and angels in the sky — you inevitably acquire 
a foretaste of the fields of usefulness which will for- 
ever open before you, as a philanthropist, a philosopher, 
a scientist, an orator, a traveller, and a lover of mental 
freedom and eternal truth. 

If you believe that the time will ever come, in any of 
the future cycles of eternity, " when every knee shall 
bow" at one and the same time, and if you believe that 
" every tongue shall confess," and " every eye see," and 
" every mind comprehend," the whole truth and all 
be as one, " knowing the Lord from the least to the 
greatest " — without requiring the intervention of an 
incomprehensible miracle, which an unchangeable God 
never can perforin — if you believe this, then you have 
little knowledge of human nature, less comprehension 



* In the concluding portion of this volume the ' l Bible-basis \ ' will 
receive further consideration. 



190 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

of the inflexible laws of everlasting progression, and 
most limited information concerning the harmonious 
system of government which flows from the hearts of 
Father God and Mother Nature. 



CHAPTER XL 

REMARKABLE PLACES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 

" One morning my dear father came to me, and said : ' Daughter, arise ! go out 
upon the hills with us.' . . . We prepared. . . . We went out upon the hills. 
. . . The Seven Lakes of Oylosimar, . . . disposed at regular distances form- 
ing a crescent-shaped curve amid the overfolding margins, and beneath the far-off 
lofty heavens, . . . appeared like the setting of brilliant diamonds." — Extract 
from Katie's communication in the Penetralia, New Ed., p. 278. 

After many days we return to contemplate the mani- 
fold glory and harmony of our Heavenly Home. 

I have in the meantime enjoyed four very interior 
experiences ; to detail which would require a large 
volume. I have observed a glory that surpasses the 
brightness of twenty suns like ours. It was the enchant- 
ing supercelestial effulgence that emanates from still 
higher and more interior Spheres. 

In 1854, twenty-three years ago, I received what is 
recorded in the Penetralia, an extract from which is 
quoted at the head of this chapter ; at which time " she 
could not exactly tell when she, with the large party of 
friends, would return from the northern section." 

AEany times since 1 have wondered why she did not 
bring to me something further relative to her life in the 
Spheres. But by acquired knowledge concerning the 
inconceivable magnitudes and the immeasurable dis- 
tances of the regions or worlds in space, to which the 
celestial people make prolonged pilgrimages, all sur- 
prise at her continued absence, as well as all anxiety 



192 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

about the utter silence of scores of others I would be 
very glad to meet, have perfectly gone out of my 
thoughts. And in all this I hope the reader's mind is 
also enlarged and at rest. 

Brighter than the brightest crystals is the scene, which 
is only partially indicated by the map, embracing the 
Seven Lakes of Cylosimar. Lovelier localities cannot 
be imagined.* Beautiful aromal emanations surround 
and pervade three of those lakes ; while the remaining 
four seem to inhale the fragrance and to absorb the verv 
light of the heavens ; impressing upon the mind a pic- 
ture of Paradise which only the pure and the noble 
would be qualified thoroughly to enjoy. Naturalness, 
spontaneousness, beautif ulness, perfection — are the only 
words that enter my thoughts. I would remain here 
and contemplate forever ; for here I could forever 
adore and worship. Hither, amid the glories and super- 
abounding goodness of Divinity, I would attract all 
whom I tenderly love. Beneath these bright skies, and 
beside these soft-flowing golden streams, listening to the 
voices of angel-people, blending with the sacred songs 
of beautiful birds, I would dwell and dream away all 
the ages of eternity. 

- * * Looking far away eastward you behold a hill- 
belted country where live the after-death inhabitants of 
planets like Venus and Mercury and several of the 
satellites. Drawing closer, you seem to feel that the 
people are steeped in sunbeams. Dreamingly, sleepily 
they look out upon the sky and over the distant spark- 



* See some references to and descriptions of them in " Death and 
the After-Life." 



REMARKABLE PLACES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 193 

ling fields. An indescribable beauty floats among them, 
and a drowsy and delightful fragrance fills the atmos- 
phere, to which these remarkable people seem to be 
blind, and unattracted, and insensible. Ah ! I behold 
what all this means. The}' are a materialistic, a heavy- 
minded, and a half-developed population. And while 
I look there arrive many death-emancipated from our 
earth — from all countries, especially from the far South 
Sea Islands and Africa — who float along like inanimate 
bodies carried, idly and helpless and indifferently, by 
the sovereign law of that attraction which determines 
destination. But behold ! the Paternal Divinity never 
forsakes such dependent children. In every shady 
sequestered nook you observe a man or a woman — 
embodying a matchless union of parent, friend and 
guardian — who, with warm hand and white arms out- 
stretched, stands ready to receive all guests, and willing 
to begin the unfolding work upon the new-comers. 
What a contrast ! Amid these throngs of dumb and 
dark and dreamy and feeble children, to see such fresh 
hospitality and such gentleness of nature manifested by 
those leading, shining Summerland beauties. It seems 
like melting, unresponsive snow upon the warm bosom 
of self-sacrificing affection. The scene is lovely with 
unconscious goodness and unrestrained love. 

Hither come half developed children, who, owing to 
some pre-natal accident or maternal weakness, were 
born imbecile, or idiotic, or deaf and dumb and blind. 
Little chaotic minds that never evolved a rational 
thought ; feeble, embryonic hearts, unfinished in form 
and structure, which never felt or responded to the 
sympathetic touch of love; sealed ears that never heard 
9 



194: VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

" the sweet music of speech ; " blind eyes that never 
opened upon the light and beauty of nature ; mute lips 
that never uttered an intelligible sound ; with the 
senses all closed, and with the whole being more than 
half unborn — behold ! how they float into the hospitalia 
of this heavenly world. Beautiful charitableness, unre- 
strained benevolence, sympathy, and all-healing tender- 
ness — how these spiritual virtues glow and blossom 
with fadeless bloom in this happy land "beyond the 
clouds and beyond the tomb." 

* * * Self-luminous, independent of all star-shine 
and solar-light, is the Summerland. Its shores are in- 
herently radiant ; its streams and rivers and fountains 
glow and glitter with their own immortal light ; its un- 
alterable mountains and undulating landscapes are ever 
green, beautiful with diamond effulgence, and more 
" delectable" than the purest pilgrim ever dreamed; 
while the firmament above is forever glowing with suns 
and planets, with clusters within clusters, and constella- 
tions within universes, far beyond the power of mind to 
conceive or the resources of language to describe. 

* * * Looking eastward of the land of charity and 
hospitalia, you observe a great multitude beneath the 
feathery-foliaged trees listening to an orator. He is 
deep-minded, witty, cultivated ; without sentiment, 
speaking in a foreign language, sounding like ancient 
Hebrew ; and his theme, treated philosophically, is 
" The Echo ! " Let us listen, also ; let us catch, if pos- 
sible, a few of his sentences : 

"Reaching beyond the horizon in history," he elo- 
quently says, " we enter the temples of slumberous 
sounds; responsive to voice, the haunting cradle of 



REMARKABLE PLACES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 195 

A-o-ma-ha. Search the air, scale the mountains, sound 
the sea, explore the heavens, penetrate the forests ; it is 
yet deuel — as empty as the word of Eliaha. Lo ! it is all 
belief ! Doubt is Echo ; the restlessness of faith, ques- 
tioning itself." * * * (He is still speaking, but we 
must away.) 

Here is a man of powerful talent, not long since a citi- 
zen of this earth, debating like an aged philosopher the 
questions of faith and knowledge. An impression 
comes that he has been approached by a missionary 
Passionist ; one to whom even the picture of the " cross " 
" is a light set in the sky by the Almighty Hand." 

The cross, to this Passionist, is the central figure — the 
symbol of trial, suffering, sacrifice, contest, death, con- 
quest, and the resurrection. Between heaven and 
earth, between God and his creatures, it signifies the 
certain end of the world and the inauguration of eternal 
life. All this was said by the Passionist to the Hebrew 
orator. The latter replies that it is " Echo." Pictures, 
signs, symbols, language (lie replies) are younger and 
less sacred than human existence, which is very, very 
ancient. The origin of the cross (he says) will soon be 
seen and known of all men ; it is a part of earliest 
hieroglyphic language derived from the human body ; 
and out of it, or from what it signifies, have in truth 
arisen most of human vices and sorrow, trials and suf- 
fering, contests and triumphs. This, in substance, is 
w T hat the Oriental orator is proclaiming. But what it 
all means time alone will fully bring to light. 

* * * Surpassingly delightful is the scene to the 
southward — a great harmonious temple of wisdom. It 
is denominated a logosal country of beautiful gardens 



196 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

and groves, abounding in graceful luxuriance of plains 
and valleys and streams — the Empire of celestial love 
and supreme mental illumination. Into the sacred 
circles of this most noble brotherhood come the wisdom 
and love of higher and more interior spiritual universes. 
Here the seekers for true wisdom find perfect repose of 
soul. As the sun imparts warmth and illumination, life 
and development to the forms of earth, so does each 
higher Summerland impart its love and knowledge 
and aspirations into souls composing this innumerable 
host of expanded and expanding minds. What a privi- 
lege only to behold them ! 

By the divine impulse of attraction you find, drawn 
into a single group, such minds as Humboldt, Herschel, 
Columbus, Galileo, Newton, Franklin, and scores of 
like mentalities of whom you have never heard. Behold 
the imperishable furniture of such minds ! Only the 
natural, the cohesive, the harmonious, the useful. They 
deal not at all with subjects involving the "infinite," 
and ignore all thoughts of the " Eternal." They do not 
touch or think of either " doubts " or " beliefs." In- 
stead of dreaming sentiment, instead of intellectual 
idleness from a sense of sufficiency and repletion, they 
know practically but five words: Truth, Industry, Ex- 
ploration, Discovery, Accomplishment. They are as 
youthful and enthusiastic as are boys and girls at a pic- 
nic ! Intuitive truth they do luxuriate in ; it is sponta- 
neously breathed forth from their faces and lips and 
beautiful lives. But it is a fact that they do not look 
into mirrors ; consequently, never admiring themselves, 
they map out whole continents of truth, one after 
another, for future excursions and investigations ; not 



REMARKABLE PLACES IN THE STTMMERLAND. 197 

counting as of any lasting value their past or present 
possessions. 

This great heavenly empire of wise souls renders 
bright and glorious the very sky above it, and seems to 
enlarge the infinite world that boundlessly expands 
around it. And oh, such sweet lessons ! Wordsworth 
says : " 'Tis Nature's law that none — the meanest of 
created things, of forms created the most vile and brute, 
the dullest or most noxious — should exist divorced from 
good." 

Actuated by this principle, behold how the angel- 
ambassadors, empowered by this society, speed to 
earth ; to aid those who design and commit crime 
through a bad organization, and to impress hope upon 
those who continually do evil from the faults of associ- 
ation or circumstances. They attempt the overthrow 
of hypocrisy ; they meet face to face with fraud and 
dissimulation; they instil despair into the conscious- 
ness of the insistent transgressor; and they aid in 
awakening a consciousness of those punishments which 
necessarily follow " deeds done in the body." Under 
the administrative jurisdiction of this brotherhood, the 
meddlesome DiakJca (but frequently unknown to them) 
are necessitated to perform many important missions of 
downright good among the most needy of mankind. 

" The temptation of the devil " means, in human 
life, promptings from evils inherited and suggestions 
from evils attracted. Of these promptings and sugges- 
tions some persons know almost nothing. A healthy, 
harmonious nature, for example, flows through life like 
a peaceful river through groves and green fields. But 
a nervous, irritable, discordant temperament is a daily 



198 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

vexation to itself, whilst it is both a demon and a hell 
to all about it ; and it is to meet and master such that 
the best angels descend and labor, and it is for such 
that the noblest of earth are often stoned and sacrificed 
and nailed to the cross. But prevention, the day of 
deliverance, will yet dawn. 

Yea, altogether glorious is the country devoted to the 
local uses and fixed habitations of this most noble 
brotherhood. It covers as much space as both France 
and Italy; and thus it seems to be a perfect world, a 
miniature paradise, within itself. The geographical 
glories of this beaming region cannot be portrayed in 
words ; and it would consume years and fill large vol- 
umes to travel over it and relate its diversified posses- 
sions ; and it would require the eloquent pen of a true 
poet to give a history of the musical groupings and 
rhythmical distributions of its population. 

Nezzar is the great river flowing nearly east and 
west. And upon its northern borders you meet the 
residences of the most gifted of females and men ever 
known in human history; while on the southern margin 
congregate in harmonious families all those inter-affili- 
ated inhabitants born upon Mars and Jupiter and 
Saturn. A glorious stream of living water called Lus- 
trccde, with its four beautiful tributaries named (1) 
Gedor (meaning a mountain city), (2) Palesto (meaning 
a country of the east), (3) Esios (meaning the goddess), 
(4) Al-namon (meaning unrestricted communion) — 
giving the impression that this country, which holds in 
its very heart this " river Jordan " and these streaming 
fountains of " Eden," is in very truth the holy land of 
the most happy immortals. 






REMARKABLE PLACES IN THE SUMMEELAOT). 199 

From this wise Brotherhood — whose numerous asso- 
ciations and consociations are distributed over such an 
expause of celestial country, the Earth's inhabitants 
have received the greatest benefits and most bountiful 
blessings. These have been showered upon mankind 
continuously, from their very earliest beginnings. 
Delegates and members of this Brotherhood were con- 
stituents of " The Spiritual Congress " — the most illus- 
trious friends of one universal humanity — whose names 
and " Exordia," you will remember, were and are re- 
corded and published in the book " Present Age and 
Inner Life." But it is humiliating and a great sorrow 
to be compelled to record the fact, that during the past 
fifteen years (owing to causes which you can read in 
" The Fountain? chapters XIII. and XIV.), the most 
distinguished members of this Brotherhood have been 
frequently constrained to suspend their personal inter- 
course with those who should be their most loyal and 
trusty earthly friends. But now we must turn our eyes 
aud thoughts in other directions. 

* * * Continuing our observations very far east of 
all we have yet seen, you behold the mountain encircled 
vallev called Ara-Elm-Haroun. Haroun is the original 
of the name " Aaron ; " aud the prefixes signify " the 
land of," or the Yalley of the Stranger. And how ap- 
propriate is this singular name ! For do you not observe 
the remarkable personal appearance of the inhabitants 1 
Let us meditate : 

O home of the doubting heart ! O vale of the 
silence of despair ! Here come angels of tenderness 
and mercy to meet and minister to the constantly arriv- 
ing suicides, and also to many who have been insane. 




(Nb. 7.) THE SEVEN LAKES OF CYLOSIMAB. 



EEMAEK ABLE PLACES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 201 

The}' breathe and smile upon these unhappy human 
flowers. But these flowers seem heedless, for are they 
not enveloped in mental darkness? Angel -voices call 
the wretched and wrecked wanderers. But, alas ! they 
do not hear the saving music of those voices. Lifelong 
beggars on earth ! O ye careless slumberers for years 
on life's bleak and stormy shores ! you do not, because 
you will not, hear the voice of your Redeemer ! You 
have arrived in this Yale during your profound sleep ; 
and you are in your own proper station in one of the 
many mansions of the Parental Home in Heaven. 
Tranquillity broods over the Yale of Haroun. The 
gently rising mountains all around yield only music and 
floods of pure light and love and happiness. A rich 
summer gladness Alls the bosoms of the birds, and it 
thrills through all the landscape about you; but you see 
it not, neither do you hear anything ; therefore you can- 
not accept and enjoy the goodness and beauty that wait 
upon you. 

Oh, what know ye, unhappy suicides, what know ye 
of the sweetness that is strained from acts of self- 
denial ? Your irrevocable past is your own ; and its 
multifarious effects are your only personal property. 
You suffered tortures, and you continually lived in 
misery. But did you not know that there are hundreds 
like yourselves, living daily in like circumstances, whose 
ill-conditions and unhappiness you might have allevi- 
ated ? Giving, you would have received ; befrieiiding, 
you would have found friends. It is now too late ! 
"With violence, by self-destruction, you have foiled 
yourself into the Yale of Aaron. Here you find virtue, 
service, happiness, beauty, angels of purity and mercy, 



202 VIEWS OF OT7R HEAVENLY HOME. 

and yet you would hide yourself ! with shoulders bent 
and downcast eyes you would flee to yonder mountains ! 
Why would you, O suicide ! why would you conceal 
yourself from the contemplation of the fair-eyed and 
sweet-faced angels who lovingly bend over you ? I will 
answer the question : Because only the j?ure in heart shall 
" see God ! " The violent, the impatient, the impure ar© 
blind and dumb and ashamed ; although they may stand 
in His very presence, they behold and enjoy nothing. 

And you, oh unhappily insane ! why do you, too, 
enter the Yale of Aaron ? Ah, you did not know 
whither you drifted with your guardians when } t ou left 
the earth. You came hither to gather a foretaste of the 
secrets of harmony, did you not ? Discords, operating 
upon a law of their own, have driven you into a heavily 
shrouded experience. All thoughts of ill, all evil 
deeds, which you of necessity now have in memory, 
must be displaced and eradicated. By slow degrees 
you may be able to lift your eyes to see the soft light of 
the summery mountains ; and, after a period, you lift 
them toward the starry skies above you ; and thus 
begin to learn the pathways of purity, and finally to ob- 
tain a conception of the gloriousness of a divine exist- 
ence. Eternity is nothing to you now or hereafter ; 
your internal state is the all in all. 

But O suicide ! and O ye insane ! answer me : 
"Why do you not rest in the beautiful land beyond the 
tomb ? Why are you not " at home " in the very lovely 
Home of the Angels % Why are you so chilly where 
eternal summer boundlessly reigns % Why do you not 
dwell with profound contentment m the balmy fields of 
God's Elysian ? Why do you seek to retire from the 



.REMARKABLE PLACES IN THE SUMMERLAND. 203 

habitations of the beautiful maidens? and why shrink 
from the touch of the youthful men of the material 
heavens ? Ah, yon do not answer. But, instead, you 
break through the barriers of good manners, and hasten 
away back to earth. To your old earthly haunts, to the 
friends you left behind, you eagerly desire to manifest 
yourself. "With burning eyes, with quivering lips, with 
the trembling hand of friendship — thus you present 
yourself. Now, why did you wander impatiently back 
to earth ? For you I will answer : Because your work 
was not finished! Because your life had not truly 
blossomed with the fulness of such terrestrial experi- 
ences as were in your own natural pathway. Remember ! 
only the full-grown human life is happy after death. 
Here we behold the secret of your burning unrest. Let 
this lesson never forsake you. Be ye forever faithful. 

* * * Our observations for to-day must here be ter- 
minated. 

In the next and concluding chapter other scenes will 
be recorded. But from what we have seen thus far, 
while in the superior condition, we can extract a great 
practical principle to govern our life and actions on 
earth. It seems that ordinary philosophy may calm 
the passional tempest, that truth may exalt the purposes 
of life, that personal excellence may glorify and dignify 
our daily existence ; but behind all this, and as a founda- 
tion for it all to rest upon, it seems that we must sweeten 
and purify life at its fountain-springs, by habitually 
letting the spiritual in us dominate the natural, and by 
permitting the highest in us to govern the lowest, for it 
is only thus that the divine light, which is above, can 
effectively penetrate and shine into our darkness. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HEAVENLY BENEFITS FOE MANKIND. 

" God of the fair and open sky ! 

How glorious above us springs 
The tented dome, of heavenly blue, 

Suspended on the rainbow's rings 4 
Each brilliant star that sparkles through. 

Each gilded cloud that wanders free 
In evening's purple radiance, gives 

The beauty of its praise to thee. 



—Peabody. 



Perfect justice and boundless goodness, upon which 
the infinite Temple of the Father and Mother is con- 
structed and inflexibly upheld, are the everlasting prin- 
ciples of a true, universal, and all-satisfying Religion. 

This eternal and perfectly natural Religion is intrin- 
sically adapted to all phases and necessities of universal 
humanity. And it is the only system that is capable of 
being universally adopted, and of becoming inseparably 
identified with the eternal intuitions and needs of rest- 
less progressive human nature. All classes, and all 
temperaments, whether intelligent and buoyant, or 
ignorant and down-trodden, demand of true Religion 
that it shall bring them (what every soul sooner or later 
needs and yearns for) true Consolation, true Courage, 
undying Hope. 

A true revelation of the immeasurable sublimities of 
the Univerccelum, while it momentarily exalts the intel- 
ligence of the spiritually philosophical, and fills with un- 



HEAVENLY BENEFITS FOR MANKIND. 205 

inferable delight the ideality and intuitive sensibilities 
of the true poet, fails to administer sweet consolations 
when life's trials oppress the heart, and thus proves itself 
inadecp;iate to the soul's hanger for sympathy, and courage, 
and hope. Therefore the reverential philosopher and 
the superficial-minded alike, in certain seasons of heart- 
broken sorrow and loneliness, plead, each in his own 
way, for the enfolding love-arms of Providence, for the 
wise and affectionate guidance and goodness of a Heav- 
enly Power. Prayer breaks forth from the very pious 
and the poetically reverential ; meditation is the medium 
of the spiritual philosopher ; penitential weeping opens 
the smile of Heaven to the infantile heart ; the tragedy 
of the cross, and the spectacle of the triumphant resur- 
rection, after enduring all degrees of suffering, are a 
comfort to the sincere believer ; but, w T hatever the form 
of the appeal, or whatever the expression of the internal 
need, the only true Religion is that which embraces the 
universe, reveals perfect justice, breathes boundless 
goodness, fills the reason with light, the affections with 
love, the sorrowing with consolation, the down-trodden 
with courage, and the despairing with the golden beams 
of eternal hope. 

Responsive to every real human need, the infinite 
sources of love and wisdom perpetually flow into and 
flood the individual receptive spirit ; and the innumera- 
ble hosts of the heavenly spheres freely shower their 
fondest affections and their most resplendent thoughts 
into the common life of the terrestrial millions. There- 
fore there is no one utterly forsaken ; no bleeding heart 
that either lives or dies wholly alone and unknown ; 
no unrequited life in this universe of love ; no possible 



206 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

estrangement from the redemptive power of the univer- 
sal Presence. All humanity moves within the orbit of 
the spiritual sun. There is no gravitation superior or 
equal to the attraction of the interior universe. \Your 
feet now point to the centre of the earth, your head 
toward the Summerland. This is true all over this 
rolling world. Do you not read the infallible prophecy 
of this scientific fact % It means that your body will 
return to the earth whence it came ; and you, yourself 
will advance to another mansion in the Heavenly 
Home. \ 

* * * After an hour of interior observation we pro- 
ceed to relate results. 

i Domestic enjoyments, based upon true conjugal 
unions, and interwoven with the fondest affections of 
children and kindred, you behold in the upper country. 
Uncompanionated natures on earth, lonely hearts long- 
ing for unchangeable kindred love, here find their own. 
Did you not observe, during the one hour of our inves- 
tigation, that five weddings occurred in the neighbor- 
hood of the Zellabingens ? How long those two men 
(angel youths now) waited for the coming of their 
mates! How loyally patient those three angel maidens 
(once wives and mothers on earth) waited for their dar- 
ling husbands to come to them through death's trium- 
phal arch ! These ten persons were truly mated and 
happily married, four in St. Louis and six in London, 
but they had each known sickness and accident and 
poverty, and many another earthly trial. Strange fact ! 
there are a great number of conjugally true marriages in 
the human family before death ; but, whether true or 
temporary, justice and goodness eventually prevail, and so 



HEAVENLY BENEFITS FOR MANKIND. 207 

what should occur does occur ; and the glory and beauty 
thereof shine into everybody's eyes.* ' 

* * * Another day has passed since the foregoing 
was written. 

Again your attention is asked to the perfections of 
the structure of the universe ; to contemplate with 
becoming reverence the magnificent system of energies 
and activities, of uses and beauties, of directing, guid- 
ing, supervising causes and their corresponding infini- 
tude of effects ; asked to contrast this Harmonial Relig- 
ion, which " lives through all life, extends through all 
extent, spreads undivided, and operates unspent," with 
those special creeds and limited schemes, which, under 
the name of religion, exist in the theological and church- 
building world about you. You are hereby introduced 
to a Father and to a Mother who, as Divine Wisdom 
and Divine Love, with infinite presence and with infi- 
nite power, fill matter with all its known properties and 
forces, and govern all things with an unalterable homo- 
geneousness of government. From the ebbings and 
flowings, from the actions and reactions of the tidal life- 
principles of this dual Supreme Being, you behold all 
those transformations and metamorphoses in the universe 
of substance which philosophers call " phenomena." f 

* If the reader would know exactly what is here meant by the 
" true" versus the " temporary " marriage, and leam of the delight- 
ful evidences of the one and of the direful consequences of the other, 
he is referred to the " Great Harmonia" Vol. IY. ; also to the 
author's re-statement and recent agitations of the question in his 
smaller work, " Genesis and Ethics of Conjugal Love." 

f In the second volume of the k ' Great Harmo7iia" there is an 
account of the operations of the Divine Spirit in man's constitution. 
See the chapter " What and Where is God ? " 



208 VIEWS OF OTJE HEAVENLY HOME. 

In this Religion man is seen, by the eyes of merciful 
love, as a power with dependencies and extenuating 
circumstances on every hand ; and thus for every evil 
act of his limited and hampered life there are some- 
where healing hands and a forgiving heart ; but, on 
the other side, in this Religion, man is also seen, by the 
eyes of justice and wisdom, as a wondrous, self -deter- 
mining power, amply endowed with intuitions of right 
and wrong, and with the principles of action, reaction, 
and inaction dwelling in the very heart of his conscious- 
ness ; and thus for every evil act in his life he is re- 
garded in the moral universe as a transgressor, requir- 
ing the administration of retribution, implying self- 
denial, self-sacrifice, and progressive purification as a 
self -instituted, regenerative process ; and this, too, 
whether he remains the full measure of his days on 
earth, or early ascends to reside in a supernal Sphere 
beyond the Sun. 

* * * High thoughts visit us from the heavenly 
Alps ! Pure and deep are our contemplations of 
heaven. A thousand stainless societies are visible in 
the Summerland, whose inmost life is in rhythmical 
movement with the concerted harmonies of far more 
celestial and supercelestial universes. The effulgence 
•of these holy and harmonious centres exceeds the glory 
and brightness of a thousand suns. Streams of perfec- 
tions spread everywhere from these loving fountains. 
Oh, perfect life ! Let us measure and govern our exis- 
tence by the even step of this progressive army. 

What response was that ! " Not yet ! not yet ! " Why 
may we not ? Why not now enter upon the true life of 
the kingdom of heaven \ We would feel the rapture 



HEAVENLY BENEFITS FOE MANKIND. 209 

of that sinless resplendence. We would sail out of our 
terrestrial discords upon the musically rolling waves 
of sublime thought. We would reside in the shining 
dwelling-places of the pure and the happy. " Not 
yet ! " Why not now, O ye of the heavenly homes ? 

" Thy purpose is worthy," I heard a voice exclaim. 
" Aspire worthily," it says ; " and the shadow of thy 
darkness will vanish. * * * Here thy sight would 
be dimmed ; thy feet falter and refuse to step ; thy lips 
would not speak; thy heart cease to throb with the 
waves of feeling and thought." 

Ah, now I think that I understand why the voice 
said, " Not yet ! " My nature is not in harmony with 
the standard prevailing in those supercelestial consocia- 
tions. Their light would fill me with blindness ; their 
thoughts would overwhelm my understanding; their 
affections could not flow through my heart ; their su- 
preme style of life would be a strain and a torture to 
me ; their harmoniousness would fill me with discords ; 
their very existence about me, with its resplendence 
and unapproachableness, would possibly excite in me 
longings for the dreamless rest of annihilation. 

The heavenly lesson is wholesome and familiar, 
namely, Never trample down or negligently overlook 
the blessings and opportunities existing at one's very 
feet in the foolish ambition to scale the " ever green 
mountains " before the right time ; or, in still plainer 
terms, never attempt to burglariously enter " the king- 
dom of heaven by violence." 

Thus we are admonished to aspire, to make progress, 
to grow larger and purer ; and at the same time we are 
told to cover and adorn one's whole life with the grace- 



210 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

ful garments of gratitude and contentment. This, as it 
is now made fully manifest, is the true path to reach 
what all men seek, namely, real life and real happiness. 
But the most of mankind in their blindness prefer the 
popular " gate " that is " wide " and the " way " that is 
" broad," both of which lead to a spiritually false life, 
and to a vast harvest of real misery. " Strait is the 
gate and narrow is the way " which leadeth to the high- 
est and truest style of life ; and this is the simple and 
only reason why " few there be that find it." 

* * * Yesterday we closed our communion with 
the quotation from the exalted and spiritual, and, there- 
fore (to most persons), supernatural and vague discourse 
of the person, of whom the officers said : " Never man 
spake like this man." To the materialist, to the learned 
Jew, and to the unspiritual multitudes of his time, as 
of any and every other time, all interior teaching seems 
to be either " supernatural," or else incomprehensibly 
unnatural and " mysterious." It is no new suggestion 
that " history repeats itself." If you know how to read 
history aright, you need never be deceived by " false 
prophets ; " nor driven from your centre of responsibil- 
ity by the " marvellous claims " of self-asserting mis- 
sionaries or other religious chieftains. 

* * * This morning you behold a remarkable 
manifestation of the principles upon which the several 
supernal societies are founded and organized. Super- 
celestial associations, which shine like spiritual suns in 
the firmament, are, for the most part, modelled upon the 
plan and principles of the perfect human body : The 
form or image of the body not only, but also there is a 
representation of the various internal vital organs, 



HEAVENLY BENEFITS FOE MANKIND. 211 

with their ties of connection ; with all the circulations 
and essential processes ; giving the heart its true official 
station, the brain its, down the two arms to the tip of 
every finger, and down both legs to the end of every 
toe : " All are members of one body." 

Here we behold what gave Swedenborg the impres- 
sion that the whole universe was in the form and shape 
of " One Grand Man." In truth the divine image is 
spiritually a likeness of the perfect human form ; be- 
cause the human is the final form, into which spiritual 
substance or " matter and spirit " blossom ; the corona- 
tion of all possible organizational progression. 

After this climax is attained in the progress of forms, 
then begins energetically, yet silently, the operation of 
the progressive law in essences, attributes, properties, 
combinations, powers, forces ; and thus henceforth, 
throughout all degrees and gradations of individual 
and communal life, through all the phases of the ad- 
joining Summerland, and onward and inward, with 
endless ebbings and flowings, from the outer Sphere to 
the inmost, and from the inmost back again through 
the new Heavenly Home of another reconstruction of 
the universe forever and forever ; yet never altogether 
satisfied, because never altogether perfect, growing old 
in some things and growing equally infantile in others ; 
then reversing the use and exercise of your faculties, 
and thus becoming a child again in that wherein you 
had grown golden and distinguished, with the ampli- 
tude of your wisdom ; and learning and enjoying the 
spontaneousness of love where for ages your affections 
had seemingly vanished out of your heart, changing 
from a man or a woman, with a thousand millions of 



212 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

years crystallized into your personal history, to a glad- 
some youth or a joyous and graceful maiden ; forget- 
ting what is called " time," and unconscious of what is 
termed " space ; " oppressed by no weight in accumula- 
tive experiences, guided by no religious institutes of a 
prior universe ; but once more in the aphelion of your 
orbit, which you cannot travel once around in less than 
what you would call " one whole eternity ; " again in 
your youth, among the highest mysteries of your ever- 
loving and wise Mother and Father, " who are in har- 
mony ; " with a memory filled with the indistinguish- 
able dreams of the past eternities through which you 
have steadily travelled, in accordance with the princi- 
ples of spiral progression ; with new ambitions, new 
impulses, new aspirations, new hunger, new thirst, new 
appetites, new life, with " a new heaven " loaded with 
stars over your youthful head, and beneath your feet a 
new Summerland teeming with inexhaustible resources, 
surrounding you on every side like a boundless uni- 
verse newly unfolded ; with what was once to you only 
relative now become absolute, and esteeming what was 
once entirely familiar to you as the now altogether un- 
approachable and unknowable ; looking with amaze- 
ment and delight out upon the new life, because not 
dwelling much in the dark depositories of memory, the 
same as a bright-minded child gazes wonderingly upon 
the horizon and the sunset, at the moon, and clouds, 
and stars in the evening sky ; forming new associations 
among your peers and incidental neighbors ; and thus 
you commence to perform another revolution in your 
immeasurable orbit, unconsciously tending every mo- 
ment inwardly toward the inmost Summerland nearest 



HEAVENLY BENEFITS FOE MANKIND. 213 

to the Deific Sun, which will be the perihelion of your 
orbital pilgrimage, involving a period beyond the 
powers of the highest angel to imagine, and developing 
an individual experience which only infinity is large 
enough to contain, but which, because it is obtained and 
appropriated in wholesome instalments, passes delight- 
fully and beneficially through the faculties as days 
slip through the hours, and years through the weeks of 
our present rudi mental life, leaving behind them only 
a general impression of the thousands and millions of 
events, great, less, and little, which those days and 
weeks and years brought into your private conscious- 
ness and memory. 

* * * In the supercelestial societies in the Summer- 
land — which are in constant correspondence with, as 
they are exact typical representatives of, the entire 
population and geographical appearances of the far 
higher and more interior Spiritual Spheres — I observe 
yet other plans and principles of organization, associa- 
tion, and government. At some time, very far future 
in human history, it may be profitable to study and copy 
after these heavenly methods of order and growth. 

In lesser brotherhoods and more terrestrial communi- 
ties I observe, in various degrees of resemblance, organ- 
izations based upon the shape and functions of a five- 
foliate leaf, not unlike the form and powers of the 
human right hand ; while in other societies the law and 
results of crystallization are fully manifested. In still 
other localities I observe social orders based upon the 
principles of vegetation, as vines, trees, flowers, and 
fruit. Elsewhere you meet with systems of social life 
and education founded upon the principles of flowing 



214 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

water, like the " Children's Progressive Lyceum," be- 
ginning with the Fountain and ending with the Ocean 
which washes the protecting Shore ; thence progressively 
onward, through rhythmically graded groups, until the 
climax or point of graduation is reached in " Liberty," 
which is the crowning privilege and high reward of the 
true children of our Heavenly Parents.* The structure 
and principles of the stellar universe are adopted by 
the members of other associations as the truest plan 
of systematizing and harmoniously uniting human in- 
terests. Some associations are composed of highest 
natures, who have " the law written upon their hearts," 
requiring neither ordinances, statutes, enactments ; nor 
so much as a thought concerning their mutual interests 
or their methods and ends of life. 

* * * I might fill a volume with important and most 
remarkable observations in these departments of the 
Heavenly Home. But it is deemed best, in this sequel 
©specially, to condense as much, and to repeat as little, 
as is consistent and possible with the ends of plain 
truth. 

There is, however, one universal principle prevailing 
and pervading the Summerland, to which I am im- 
pressed to ask your attention, namely, The principle of 
Use. It seems to underlie and to overflow every body 
and every thing. There is, consequently, the plainest 
possible evidence of a design in everything everywhere 
— a primal love in all affections, a manifest thought 
within every living thing, an intelligent purpose in 



* The Progressive Lyceum plan you will find in the little work 
bearing the above quoted title. 



HEAVENLY BENEFITS FOR MANKIND. 215 

every organization and movement — so that, unless the 
spirit of a man is blind or near-sighted after death, as 
most men are in this world, a doubt concerning the ex- 
istence of a Supreme Intelligence is simply impossible. 

The glorious principle of universal Service, of Use, 
of Design, of Destiny — this principle distinguishes our 
Heavenly Home from everything known and experi- 
enced by mankind on earth. The happiness and pros 
perity of each member of society are secured, upon the 
payment by the individual of the inflexible price, from 
which no true angel ever appeals ; which is that he or 
she contribute a faithful service, in recognized and ap- 
propriate uses, to the prosperity and happiness of others. 
This principle is beautifully and universally exemplified 
throughout the superior societies in all the heavenly 
Spheres. 

When may we look for the advent of such a kingdom 
of heaven on earth ? The reign of Universal Justice 
through the reign of Universal Love ! For the only 
foundation for such a state of society is the foundation 
of perfect fraternal and Universal love. When you 
pray the " Lord's Prayer," let no other thought, no other 
desire, no other aspiration occupy your mind ; if other- 
wise, your prayer is in vain, and your lip-service, under 
the form of religion, will come back to you like " sound- 
ing brass." 

# * * * * # * * 

The time has arrived, and we must close our spiritual 
perceptions upon the systems of universal space. The 
fields of splendor, and the " many mansions " of gor- 
geousness in the Heavenly Home, with their celestial 
warmth and harmonious light and beauty, we shield 



236 VIEWS OF OUR HEAVENLY HOME. 

from the gaze of an unprogressed, unprepared, discor- 
dant humanity. 

" Beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb ! " When 
your time shall have come in its fulness, you will glide 
forth upon the magnetic river ; and, accompanied by 
faithful guardians, you will find your own place in the 
inner Temple of Father God and Mother Nature. 



THE END OF PART II. 



EXPLANATORY DISCUSSION OF IM- 
PORTANT QUESTIONS. 



APPENDIX. 



(1.) 

DISTRIBUTION OF COLD AND HEAT ON 
THE PLANETS. 

By explaining the causes of our terrestrial climates, 
the reader may understand more about the inhabited 
planets. 

Human nature, both physically and mentally, is 
essentially swayed by the constitution and temperature 
of the common, respirable air. The subtleness and 
extent of this aerial influence upon man's bodily powers, 
upon his intellectual achievements in the arts and 
sciences, upon his feelings and disposition as a social 
being, upon his religious developments and governmen- 
tal systems, almost transcends belief. In the torrid 
belt, as in the two frigid zones, Nature and humanity 
are alike arrested and held in check. Supreme indif- 
ference to the voice of every energetic passion in the 
extreme hot, and incapability of evolving any power- 
ful mental power in the extreme cold, results in bring- 



218 APPENDIX. 

ing together the two extremes; from which, instinc- 
tively, the majority of mankind naturally travel toward 
the delightful temperature and inspiring electricities of 
the middle zone. 

The philosophy of this fact is, as a fundamental law 
of Nature, that between two extremes invariably grow 
the grandest perfections. And the science of it is, that 
the respirable air, compounded of oxygen and nitrogen, 
as chemistry now teaches, is really a reservoir and a 
viaduct for the reception and introduction into man's 
body and mind of the electricities and spiritualities of 
both heaven and earth. The sun's influences in the 
temperate zones combine with the inherent principles 
of life in the globe. Temperature is another name for 
motion; and respirable air is another name for life. 
Motion of the atoms of the elements (or temperature), 
and the life of the elements (or respirable air), combine 
and evolve the cerebral phenomena of sensation and 
intelligence. These products of motion and life, in 
both mankind and animals, are deficient and exceed- 
ingly imperfect in both the torrid and the frigid zones. 
Hence, in these two opposite sides, or extreme ends, of 
our globe, Nature and human nature are equally held 
in check. Less than one- third of the earth's surface is 
consequently congenial and favorable to great human 
and natural developments. 

The sides of the American continent are washed by 
three grand bodies of water — the Arctic, the Atlantic, 
and the Pacific. The wind-cnrrents as well as the 
ocean-currents, on this immense continent, will be 
found working together harmoniously, modified and 
rendered gloriously variable by the great mountain 



APPENDIX. 219 

ranges, the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains, which 
for human good cooperate with the great lakes and the 
mighty rivers between the three great oeeans. Along 
the northern shores of the continent, a powerful ocean 
current sweeps eastward in the Arctic ; which is per- 
fectly balanced by a great northward current, along 
our eastern shores, in the Atlantic ; while along our 
attractive western side sweeps, in the Pacific, a south- 
ward current; these three great oceanic flows, taken 
in connection with the extraordinary effects of moun- 
tains and valleys, lakes and rivers, explain the wind- 
currents, the temperatures, and the peculiar social, 
political, and religious developments of America. 

The human race from the great East is western- 
bound, under full speed, in the face of the great winds 
which flow almost perpetually from the West. Asia, 
in like manner, is pressed into Europe, and Europe is 
emptying itself into America ; and the great West and 
Southwest of this new world are rapidly receiving vast 
reinforcements of human nature ; thus demonstrating 
that it is in the horoscope of every family to make 
progress in the face of the wind ! 

Circumstances, both geographical and climatic, 
largely control the forms, faiths, labors, and disposition 
of mankind. So much of the Asiatic coast as is repro- 
duced upon our Atlantic, so much of ancient Asiatic 
experience will be approximately reproduced in 
America. The history of Greece and Rome, of Spain 
and France, of England and the great North, will re- 
appear more or less distinctly marked with likeness 
between the same parallels of latitude in this newly- 
populated continent. Moisture (which depends upon 



220 APPENDIX. 

inland streams and the direction of slopes) exercises a 
distinct influence upon climate ; but there is something 
which is yet more influential, namely : time, which 
brings in its omnipotent arms the habits, the religions, 
the governments, and the scientific accomplishments of 
mankind. Government is influenced by religion ; re- 
ligion is modified by society; society is swayed by 
climate ; climate is greatly affected by moisture ; mois- 
ture is a product of waters, slopes, valleys, and moun- 
tain ranges ; but mark ! these elevated ranges of earth 
will be surmounted by towers, mechanical instruments, 
and scientific discoveries, imparting correct knowledge 
of aerial currents and temperatures, and eventually 
controlling the production and distribution of rain, 
snow, electricity, and the principalities and powers of 
the air ; so that, in the reflex action of mankind on the 
planet and the elements, it would be no longer true to 
say that man is influenced by his geographical and 
climatic circumstances, for then man's heel will crush 
the head of his physical conditions, and he wiU be mas- 
ter of the globe ! 



(2.) 
THE PONDERABILITY OF IMPONDERABLES. 

The descending and ascending scales given ten years 
ago in the first part of the " Stellar Key " has been 
gradually confirmed by the very wonderful progress of 



APPENDIX. 221 

modern science. In the New York Tribune, January 
16th, 1878, the following editorial sets the whole sub- 
ject in a most encouraging light : 

" We have before expressed the belief that title last half of the 
present century will always be accounted among the great eras of 
scientific discovery. There are so many wonderful results of recent 
research, that it is difficult to enumerate even the more prominent 
ones. Among them are the invention of the spectroscope, with the 
discoveries reaching from earth to inconceivably distant fixed stars, 
which have followed in its train ; the determination of the laws of 
the correlation of forces and the conservation of energy, which suc- 
ceeded the discovery that heat is only a mode of motion, and created 
new conceptions of the whole universe as to its past, present, and 
future ; the preparation of the aniline colors, which has furnished an 
infinite number of iridescent and varying hues ; the composition, from 
lifeless elements, of many organic substances, by which false notions 
about vital force (which had been accounted half -miraculous) have 
been overthrown ; the discovery of the satellites of Mars, which 
round out and nearly complete the picture of the solar system ; the 
invention of the telephone and the phonograph, which enable us on 
the one hand to transmit our voices to great distances, or on the 
other, to preserve our utterances for indefinite periods, so that the 
speech of to-day may be set aside and heard again at any time in the 
future. 

" To this wonderful record a new chapter is now to be added. 
Within a very few weeks, two European investigators have succeeded 
in condensing to a liquid form all the gases that had hitherto defied 
such effort. In the early part of this century, when certain gases 
were liquefied by Faraday and other experimenters, the facts excited 
general interest, as giving a clew to the real constitution of matter. 
The new experiments were widely tried, and in performing them at 
Paris, in a public lecture, an explosion occurred which killed one of 
the operating assistants. Then, for more than half a century, dis- 
covery in this line was almosb suspended. Several gases, such as 
nitric oxide, acetylene, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, absolutely 
withstood all attempts. Within a few weeks, the compound gases 
named, and some others, have been liquefied. Next, oxygen yielded 
to pressure and cold ; an event of sufficient importance to be 



222 APPENDIX. 

telegraphed by Professor Tyndall to The London Times, and to be 
announced at scientific centres all over the world. Now comes the 
announcement that the remaining gases have undergone a similar 
treatment, and are liquefied : nitrogen, under a pressure of 200 at- 
mospheres ; hydrogen, under 280. The latter gas was only reduced 
to an opaque mist, but the air which we ordinarily breathe was con- 
verted into a liquid, and poured out in a fine stream. The cold re- 
quired for these experiments is almost inconceivable ; it is estimated 
at 300° below zero of the Centigrade thermometer, equivalent to 
more than 500° below, of Fahrenheit's scale. 

" The discoverers who have achieved these results — M. Cailletet, 
of Paris, and M. Pictet, of Geneva — will receive due honor from their 
scientific brethren. It remains to be shown what the discoveries 
teach. The degree of cold that was required in condensing common 
air, though remarkable, is not greater than is estimated for the void 
of space through which the planets are travelling ; that extends in- 
finitely between and perhaps beyond the stars. It was the low tem- 
perature — not the great pressure — which liquefied the gases ; they 
took the liquid form while escaping from pressure, and in the act of 
escaping the extreme cold was attained. It follows that, in the cold 
of space, unwarmed by the sun, an atmosphere like that of our 
globe would freeze first into a liquid, and then into a solid mass, be- 
coming at last a mere rock as hard as granite. We can now better 
appreciate the vast changes which comets undergo in passing from 
the frozen confines of our solar system to so close a neighborhood of 
the sun that they are reduced to a vapor. Knowing now, as we do 
with certainty, the extremes of form to which all matter is liable, 
we may surely predict that the future of our globe simply depends 
upon the amount of heat received by its surface. If the heat dimin- 
ishes, all earth and air will be silent stone without the breath of life 
upon it ; if the heat increases, the whole world will melt in thin air.'* 



APPENDIX. 223 



(3.) 
ALLEGED ERRORS OF CLAIRVOYANCE 

The editor of the Merrimac Journal, ISTewburyport, 
Mass., Sept. 15th, states the " facts " as follows : 

" In a paper published in the Banner of Light, Andrew Jackson 
Davis says : ' What a memorable day was yesterday [Jan. 15th, 
1877]. It was the first time since the autumn of 1846, that I have 
enjoyed telescopic (clairvoyant) observations of any portions of the 
royal planets.' .... Then, further along he says, 'In conse- 
quence of all this, it was difficult, as it was unnecessary, for Mars to 
produce satellites, save a very feeble belt of cosmical bodies.' 

" Now, if Mr. Davis was in the state he supposed himself to be, and 
he thought that mentally he was near enough to Mars to see its in- 
habitants and know their manner of life, then he should have known 
whether Mars had moons or not. He said there were none ; but 
since that Prof. Hall with Alvan Clarke's great telescope, has dis- 
covered two ; and some other astronomer has found a third. The 
clairvoyant telescope is less powerful than Clarke's telescope. We 
trust that the Banner of Light will shed its rays on this apparent 
inaccuracy of the greatest clairvoyant in the world. 

" Next to our earth and moon, men have abetter knowledge of Mars 
than of any other heavenly body. Venus comes nearer to the earth, 
but it is not so clearly visible. Mars' surface has been scrutinized 
and mapped, and long since it was declared to be as well fitted for 
habitation as the earth, but until this year all have agreed that it 
was moonless. It has been noticed that it was subject to reflected 
light, but no examination, till this year, revealed any satellites." 

There is a self-evident candor in the foregoing criti- 
cism, which moves me to ask attention to a few essen- 
tial considerations. They are as follows : Recently, in 



224 APPENDIX. 

order to obtain more information, I have enjoyed three 
telescopic views of the surroundings of Mars. During 
each of these views (clairvoyantly) it is a fact that the 
body of the planet was of necessity almost entirely ex- 
cluded " from the field of observation," for thus it was 
with the astronomers who gazed with their telescope ; 
even as it was with the author, in the first instance, the 
surroundings of Mars were almost entirely shut out of 
the range of vision while the body and superficial 
features of the planet itself were the chief objects upon 
which the vision was closely concentrated. But, as I 
have before explained, the mere glance at the exterior 
of Mars impressed the fact that there existed a " belt of 
cosmical bodies" And you will observe that I did not 
say that Mars had no moons; but I did say, what 
astronomers have since discovered, that there are " cos- 
mical bodies " around Mars ; but that these " bodies " are 
entitled to be termed satellites, is a question not yet 
settled. I have already affirmed that, according to my 
understanding of their origin and constitution, Mars has 
no moons in the sense that our earth has one. 

But just here, leaving for the present the question of 
" cosmical bodies versus moons " around Mars, I de- 
sire to awaken one or two reflections concerning clair- 
voyance ; as to its source, its power, and the laws which 
govern, or which should govern, its development and 
exercise. 

A clairvoyant's sight is the same, in principle, as the 
sight of the bodily eyes ; only the first is internal, or 
from invisible eyes, so to speak, and is strictly telescopic 
in its far-reaching power of vision. (This is explained in 
the first part of the book.) The clairvoyant eyes, there- 



APPENDIX. 225 

fore, must conform to the same laws and conditions which 
regulate all ordinary sight-seeing in all sensuous investi- 
gations. Spirits (as we improperly call the residents of 
the other worlds) see and hear and feel by and through 
their bodily senses, just as we do in this world. These 
interior senses (that is, the principles within our com- 
mon bodily senses) are just the same after death as 
they are now within our present constitutions. They 
are in both worlds subject to limitations ; are therefore 
liable to be misled and mistaken ; and hence are suscep- 
tible to education and progressive improvement, in 
accordance with the universal laws of contact, experi- 
ence, reasoning, will, affection, activity, and growth 
This explains why it is that, now and then, a clairvoyant 
may correctly see exactly what his or her vision is con- 
centrated upon ; and, at the same time, overlook very 
many — or not see at all — other bodies or questions 
which may be in closest proximity. 

" A wry feeble belt of cosmical bodies," is what I 
perceived incidentally to the vision of January 15th, 
1877. Naturally enough, when I first heard that " two 
moons" had been astronomically discovered around 
Mars, I remarked to a friend : " Well, that shows that 
one pair of eyes cannot see everything." " Why didn't 
you see them," he asked, " when you were looking at 
Mars ? " " Because," I replied, " my vision was fixed 
telescopically upon the body of the planet, and not upon 
its environments." 

But since I have had three separate observations of 
those " environments " (at which times the planet itself 
was not visible to me), I have concluded that the exact 
phraseology, " a very feeble belt," etc., is correct, and 



226 APPENDIX. 

should not be changed. I observed that the " two little 
masses " discovered, are exactly like many other bodies 
circulating in an almost continuous river near the equa- 
tor of Mars ; which bodies would be visible to astrono- 
mers, like the " two " or " three " already seen by them, 
if they were large enough to reflect light enough to 
become visible. I am quite certain that, some of these 
coming nights, astronomers will discover numerous " cos- 
mical bodies," not as large as some of those about Mars, 
but similar to them in origin, constitution, and conduct, 
rotating in the same general direction, northeast and 
southwest, between two and three thousand miles, in the 
cold and dark space, in the upper ether atmosphere, 
which surrounds our own earth. 

But to return, briefly, to the " very feeble belt of cos- 
mical bodies." Of course this remark is only compara- 
tive, and resulted, undoubtedly, in great measure, from 
the incidental glimpse described. According to the 
calculations of one or two astronomers, the one moon 
of Mars is only "four miles thick," while the other 
body " is yet smaller ; " and these, with many other simi- 
lar bodies, are flying around the planet, constituting the 
" belt," which wasjlrst mentioned by the author. 

The reader is aware that the terms " cosmical bodies " 
are used by the author to mean masses of material ele- 
ments floating or rotating in space, which eventually 
chemically unite into larger and yet larger masses, and 
thus ultimate through asteroids, satellites, and meteo- 
ric assemblages, into earths, like this on which we live. 

In this connection I may introduce Prof. Alexander's 
astronomical remarks upon the probable origin of the 
satellites of our neighboring planet. His paper was 



APPENDIX. 227 

read before the National Academy of Sciences, last Oc- 
tober. 

" The question was, ' Whence came the inner satellite of Mars? ' 
This satellite, he said, has a greater angular velocity than the equa- 
torial surface of its primary, thus presenting a curious anomaly in 
the solar system. This fact, said the speaker, led me to seek whether 
somebody had not met with an accident there and Mars had not ap- 
propriated it. I found that the orbits of three comets intersected 
near the orbit of Mars. About 1813 two enormous comets were 
very near in contact in the orbit of Mars, and Mars itself was there. 
However, an examination of the velocity of these comets showed 
that neither was great enough to satisfy the conditions. I became 
satisfied that no nucleus of any comet could have been transformed, 
into the satellite in question. According to solar physics, the body 
must have had at least a velocity equal to the orbital velocity of 
Mars, plus the velocity of the present satellite about Mars. There 
are formulas in which the mean distance of a body from the sun is 
a function of its velocity at any given period. By combining the 
equation expressing this function in the case of Mars with the equa- 
tion in the case of the supposed asteroid, an expression is obtained 
giving the mean distance of the asteroid from the sun in terms of 
the velocities of the planet and asteroid. The velocity of Mars and 
its moon of course is known. By using the proper value of the 
velocity of the asteroid to satisfy the conditions explained above, a 
value for the mean radius vector of such asteroid is obtainable, which 
is somewhat smaller than the average distance of the mass of aste- 
roids from the sun. However, if an asteroid did come under the 
influence of Mars, its velocity would have been somewhat lessened 
before it actually was changed into a satellite. If we add to the 
velocity of the supposable asteroid in the computations at quantity 
to represent this loss, the resulting value of the radius vector becomes 
similar to that of several well-known asteroids. Hence the phenom- 
ena presented by the inner satellite of Mars are explained by the 
hypothesis that one of the asteroids was drawn away from its original 
orbit and caused to revolve about that planet." 

Here, you observe, is a distinguished scientist and 
mathematician exerting his faculties to explain the fact 



228 APPENDIX. 

that the so-called " moons " of Mars do not conduct them- 
selves like moons ; because they are in fact only parts 
of " a belt of cosmical bodies " rotating in the atmo- 
sphere of that noble planet. 

Scientific star-searchers, with reference to Mars, have 
encountered instrumental impediments. According to 
reports so far, the inner satellite of Mars has never been 
seen through any of the very large telescopes. Lord 
Rosse's great six-foot reflector was only capable of dis- 
closing the outer body, but not well enough to measure 
it. But the refractors, with only twelve, or even seven 
inches aperture, have brought the existence of both 
little bodies to the human eye. The fact is that the 
cosmical bodies and the so-called satellites are too aste- 
roidal to render themselves distinctly visible through 
reflecting telescopes. 



(M 

CONCERNING THE PERPETUITY OF THE 
HUMAN FORM. 

A discussion recently has agitated many broad- 
minded and truth-loving persons, the subject-matter 
whereof is very explicitly set forth in the following 
letter : 

" Brooklyn, N. Y., July, 1877. 

"A. J. Davis, 

"Most Esteemed Friend: — "In Chapter X. of your 'Views,' 
etc., you approach a very knotty and delicate subject, the organiza- 
tion of the Spirit-body. You say, ' In Summerland some of the vital 



APPENDIX. 229 

organs ' do not exist, and, particularly, ' no propagation requiring the 
external organs of generation,' etc. 

14 1 need not remind you — for you are much more familiar with the 
subject than I — that this, your representation of the spiritual body, 
which is a merely negative one, depriving the human form of the con- 
ditions which make it the human form, stands in direct contradiction 
to the teachings of Swedenborg, whose inspiration and seership you 
do not deny. 

" You know that Swedenborg carries the sexual distinction beyond 
the Spiritland, even to what he calls Heaven, and represents the 
4 conjugal delights 'as the highest in this condition. He gives the 
Universe the (spiritual) shape of Man, and locates his several spheres 
or circles of Heaven within the various (spiritual) organs of the 
corresponding physical organization, mentioning the genital organs 
particularly, while you abolish these (and others) already in the 
Summerland, that is, in the next stage of disembodied men. It is, 
of course, consistent in you to abolish these organs, since you abolish 
the / 'unctions ; but I do not see how it is possible to retain sexual 
distinction, as you do, without sexual organization, of which, if 
there be any truth in the doctrine of Correspondence, the necessary 
logical consequence would be sexual functions / also. I think that 
Swedenborg in carrying marriage, that is sexual union, through all 
the stages of spiritual existence, is more consistent; although not 
being one who is made to ' jurare in verba magistri,' I confess that 
his offspring from heavenly union of the sexes, which he calls 
* thoughts ' transcends my comprehension. 

" If it should suit you to still throw some more light upon this deli- 
cate question, you would perhaps oblige more readers of your in- 
spired ' Views,' besides your devoted friend, 

"G.B." 

Answer. — It will be first of all perceived that the 
thoughtful and scholarly author of the foregoing letter 
— no doubt without the least intention — develops the 
question of the reliability of witnesses — two seers, with 
a hundred years between them, looking at the same 
facts, record exactly opposite conclusions. For myself, 
then, concerning this conflict of testimony, I have this to 



230 APPENDIX. 

say : The only absolute authority is Nature ; of which 
Iteason is the only infallible interpreter ; of which In- 
tuition is the only inextinguishable illuminator, being 
the true inward " light which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world." 

In this light, governed by these ever-present and 
immortal authorities, I ask my questioning correspond- 
ent, as I recommend all human minds, to test the ques- 
tion which is awakened by this conflict of testimony 
And to the end that the principles and facts of Nature 
may be spread before the judgment-seat of Reason, I 
proceed to offer further suggestions in the form of 
affirmations. 

Progressive development is a universal principle. By 
and through this principle all the kingdoms of animated 
and inanimated nature were steadily, though slowly, 
evolved. They were evolved from countless germinal 
points, and through countless ages or periods of time. 

Science will demonstrate the truth of these propo- 
sitions. These natural processes being admitted, the 
question arises : What is the human form ? Also, 
another question, when was the final (the perfect) form 
evolved and established? When was the last annual- 
ized transient part eliminated ? And when on earth 
was the wholly perfect and the everlasting human form 
attained and consummated ? 

Yonder, for illustration, is a young man of uncom- 
mon grace and beauty. He commands the admira- 
tion of all beholders ; winning, popular, conspicuous, 
enthusiastic. Well, is he perfect in all his parts ? Do 
you say that he is free from defects in his anatomy, 
physiology, and phrenology ? Observe him a few years, 



APPENDIX. 231 

and you will discover in his manifestations of character 
many points of strength and at least a few points of 
weakness ; in other words, you will discover numerous 
imperfections in the operations of the organization of 
the (apparently) perfect young man. 

Now if it were true that the human form is an outcome 
of the form of the pre-existent perfect spirit, then there 
would be some foundation for the assertion that all the 
external appendages of the body would appear and con- 
tinue to exist after death. For they would then be only 
so many shapes projected from interior structures. But 
the truth is : The human body is an ultimate (not of 
spiritual forms, but) of all the formative principles, 
powers, forces, elements, essences, and properties, which 
begin their progressive labors in the least and lowest 
departments of this terrestrial globe. Thus the first dry- 
land creatures were more bird and fish than animal ; 
the first indications of humanity were far more like 
animals than men. When the most perfect human 
body was developed, it was a factory full of organs, full 
of wheels and hoppers, adapted to receive grists in the 
form of food, fluid, gases, and principles. And this 
corporeal mill is adapted to decompose them, and to 
refine them, and to promote them into ultimate parts 
and particles, and thus bestow more substance and 
more energy upon those soul-elements, which eventuate 
at death in the body of the spirit. 

ISTow, if it be conceded that the form which a man 
wears upon his spiritual consciousness after death, is 
thus derived, the question arises : When does he attain 
to the point of perfect formation f A mountain of tes- 
timony from the citizens of the next sphere looms up on 



232 APPENDIX. 

the side of great organizational progression " over there." 
For example, do you suppose that " flesh and blood " 
can enter the kingdom of spirit ? Or, rather, do you 
imagine that man's teeth in the next world are made of 
lime % Do you suppose that his Jinal set of teeth ap- 
pears like the ' ' temporary set " which nature puts in 
the mouth of the child 'i Does the dental organism of 
the human adult exactly correspond to those imperfect 
teeth pushed out for a few years in the gums of the 
child ? But here on earth are we not all children ? In 
the Summerland you will finally receive the adult (or 
the ultimate) form ; just as the adult teeth are superior 
to those of infancy. 

The human form, when it is perfect, is an exact rep- 
resentative of the formative principles which reside 
eternally in the spirit; or, in truer words, the spirit of 
man is a totality, a final individualization indestruct- 
ible, of a perfect proportion of all essences and princi- 
ples in the Central Sun. 

Sex exists forever in the principles of the spirit ; 
male and female, positive and negative, wisdom and 
love. Outwardly, during all the subordinate stages of 
evolution, these inherent principles clothe themselves 
in appropriate external organs with legitimate external 
functions; but when the individual rises into higher 
kingdoms of life, the spiritual progress dominates the 
material temporary parts (derived hereditarily from our 
animal predecessors), and thus, at last, the most perfect 
form is reached as a spiritual ultimation. 

Swedenborg, you observe, admitted that only 
" thoughts V resulted from sexual commerce in the 
spiritual heavens. Why, then, does he insist, illogically 



APPENDIX. 233 

and unphysiologically, upon the existence after death of 
the outward organs of impregnation and child-elabora- 
tion % There is no philosophical connection between 
the causes (the organs) and the effects (the thoughts) 
which are the only offspring born of man and woman in 
the different heavens ? 

Now, as to the heavenly results (thoughts) I am con- 
strained to agree with Swedenborg ; with the amend- 
ment of the additional words, affections ; a fact which 
I have many times noticed among the heavenly fami- 
lies. Thoughts are boys ; affections are girls ; and 
many celestial parents are blest with a numerous and 
beautiful progeny. And it is not exceedingly difficult 
to feed, and clothe, and educate, and direct the steps of 
such children ! 



(5.) 

DIVERSITIES OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS WITH- 
OUT ANTAGONISM. . 

THE SUPERIOR CONDITION AND THE MEDIUM STATE. 

"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would 
not have you ignorant." Thus wrote the fearless Paul 
to the Corinthians, in the twelfth chapter of his first 
letters to them. He tells them to their face that they 
know that when they were materialistic Gentiles, they 
were led unto dumb idols in the vain belief that they 
would receive important information from the Gods ; 



234 APPENDIX. 

and he intimates that, although they were now undoubt- 
edly converted to the truth of spiritualism, yet that they 
were dangerously ignorant of the nature and degrees of 
spiritual gifts. 

Therefore he proceeds to indoctrinate his over-credu- 
lous Corinthian converts in these plain words : " Now, 
there are diversities of gifts .... and diversities of 
operations .... but it is the same God [Principle ? ] 
which worketh all in all ... . For to one is given 
.... Wisdom ; to another .... Knowledge ; to 
another Faith, [Intuition?] .... to another the gift 
of Healing, [Magnetism ?].... to another the work- 
ing of Miracles, [most wonderful Spirit-manifesta- 
tions ? ] to another prophecy [predicting in both prose 
and verse ? ] to another discerning Spirits, [Clairvoyant 
perception ? ] to another divers kinds of Tongues, 
[mediums speaking in different languages % ] to another 
the interpretation of tongues, [the talent of discerning 
the meaning hidden within unknown words ? ] But all 
these worketh " by virtue of " the self -same Spirit" [or 
Principle % ]. Yet all work together for a good purpose 
— " many members " [many forms of mediumship % ] 
" of one body," in opposition to the old Dispensation and 

for the ushering in of the new " For the body is 

not one member, but many." 

But there must be no jealousy in this many-in-one 
movement. Paul understood the prevailing ignorance 
on all mysterious spiritual questions ; he knew how 
ignorance and selfishness carried very honest persons 
into ambition and rivalry, impelling many to say and do 
wicked things to gain place and power ; and so, with 
true gentleness and unswerving firmness, he argued the 



APPENDIX. 235 

case : " If the foot shall say, Because 1 am not the eye, 
I am not of the body." But, hark ye ! " is it therefore 
not of the body % " What the fleet, progressive, ambi- 
tion, brainless "foot" said in reply to this conclusive 
argument we are left to conjecture. " If the body were 
an eye, where were the hearing ? " If the whole were 
hearing, where were the smelling ?...." the eye can- 
not say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor 
again the head to the feet, I have no need of you .... 
now, " there should be no schism in the body " . . . . 
" are all apostles ? Are all prophets ? Are all 
teachers ? Are all workers of miracles % Have all the 
gifts of healing ? Do all speak with tongues % Do all 
interpret \ " Just here Paul counselled his converts to 
" covet earnestly the best gifts." And yet, seeing the 
general failure of almost all who sought to become dis- 
tinguished by " the best gifts," the sturdy old apostle, 
being reminded that to become a Harmonial Man — a 
whole (holy) man in the Christ-principle of pure love 
and trust in the Father — was infinitely better than any 
acquired " gift," so he closed his letter in these deeply 
impressive words : " And yet I show you a more excel- 
lent wayP 

Now, brethren ! do you believe that we Spiritualists 
are passing through (among ourselves, too !) the identical 
condition of ignorance, trial, jealousy, disappointment, 
and schism, which Paul wrote to overcome among the 
Corinthians so many hundreds of generations ago ? We 
are ! There is a general desire for mediumship ; and 
this desire, as soon as gratified, becomes the foundation 
of numerous ills ; and, mainly, because each ear wants 
to be also a hand, and every handsome foot yearns to 



236 APPENDIX. 

become a beautiful head, and face, too ! "Why ? Be- 
cause the demand of an ignorant constituency is satis- 
fied with nothing less than the great accomplishment of 
many gifts in one. " The mediums are, most of them, 
persons of peculiar and sensitive organization, as to 
both body and mind, and after all allowance for unfa- 
vorable exceptions, they, as a class, deserve more chari- 
table judgment than they are likely soon to receive." 

This passage, so wholly true, was written by a minister ; 
and of Spiritualists the same true man wrote : " Among 
the people who bear this name and hold this belief, 
there are many who must be classed with the very best 
men and women that we have ever known. Some of 
the most perfect and happy homes that now bless this 
world are those of Spiritualist families. Of course per- 
sons of this class are free from the absurdities and in- 
sanities of which we have spoken. They are thoughtful, 
reverent, and deep-hearted. Above all, they are true, 
they are faithful. They love all ' things that are of 
good report ; ' they love their fellow-men, and put their 
religion into their lives. We cannot describe them so 
well any other way, as by quoting what Mr. Hale says 
about the ' Harry Wadsworth people : ' ' The free-ma- 
sonry was that you found everywhere a cheerful out- 
look — a perfect determination to relieve suffering, and 
a certainty that it could be relieved ; a sort of sweet- 
ness of disposition which comes, I think, from the habit 
of looking across the line, as if death were little or 
nothing ; and with that, perhaps, a disposition to be 
social, to meet people more than half way.' Thank 
God for all such of whatever name." 

During several years past the author has been fre- 



APPENDIX. 237 

quently reported, much to distress of loving friends, as 
attempting to deride medimn&hip, and, instead, as trying 
to exalt, as the only reliable state, the superior condition. 
And do you believe that a very large proportion of 
Spiritualists and mediums seem to be under this delu- 
sion ? It has come to me in a great variety of ways. 
Recantation has been charged as well. A paper is sent 
me containing the following : 

"Mr. Davis has gone beyond us; he does not believe in spirits 
holding intercourse with human beings through mortal mediums ; 
but in his own clairvoyant integrity we opine he has not a doubt. 
But we do not forget that Mr. Davis was psychologized or mesmer- 
ized by a human operator in the early stages of his career, and that 
' Nature's Divine Revelations ' was published as a contribution from 
spirits. If he was really, as the book states, psychologized by a 
mortal, may he not be psychologized by an immortal ? After all, it 
is possible he may still be under the influence or sport of spirits, 
and made to turn an intellectual somersault for the sake of bitter 
experience for himself, and stimulus to the lagging faith of others 
who, as yet, have not suffered the humiliation of recantation." 

Not long after the receipt of the above misapprehen- 
sion, the author was thus addressed by a troubled mind : 

"Dear Sir : — A few days ago I saw in one of our local papers 
a notice that ' A. J. Davis, the medium, had recanted, and asserted 
that what he had written and spoken was not under spirit influence.' 
I have forgotten the exact wording of the statement. Had I placed 
the least confidence in the notice I should have been terribly startled. 
For if you have been deceived or deceiving for so many years, where 
are we to look for truth ? I hope you will answer this at your ear- 
liest convenience, if it is but a simple assurance of your steadfast- 
ness in your beautiful philosophy. 

1 ' Yours very truly, 

"P. L. M." 



238 APPENDIX. 

Another writes : " Now is not all this strange talk for 
a Spiritualist ? And if it is not spirits that communi- 
cate with ns through mediums — what is it ; or what 
does it all amount to? Does it mean that we must 
accept A. J. Davis's statements as conclusive, without 
seeking to see and know for ourselves ? Is he one of 
those rare cases that can communicate with spirits, and 
common people need not trj, but just swallow all he 
says % " 

Many striking crudities of mistaken criticism have 
visited the author by mail during the few years past ; 
and it is fair to presume that the reader is not more 
surprised than was the recipient himself. Because I 
had written against the errors and fatal abuses prac- 
ticed in the name of mediumship and Spiritualism; 
and because (see the Fountain) I had most solemnly 
declared that the abuses to which the holy light has 
been subjected by selfish human nature are now react- 
ing upon us in the " withdrawal from direct intercourse 
witli earth's inhabitants, of scores of truly great and 
learned minds ; " therefore I was accused (and too 
many yet believe that it is true) of decrying and repu- 
diating mediumship, of denying that I had ever exer- 
cised any of its gifts, and of erecting, instead, the stand- 
ard of the superior condition as alone worthy of uni- 
versal acceptation. 

Of Spiritualism itself, which I have been unjustly 
accused of renouncing, I have (see Arahula, p. 397), 
affirmed that it is " the first religion that takes facts for 
its foundation ; that rears its temples of thought on the 
immortal principles of philosophy; that has demon- 
strably brought life and immortality to light ; that has 



APPENDIX. 239 

overcome death and the horrors of the grave ; that 
sounded the gospel of Freedom equally to woman and 
man, to old and young, to lord and serf ; that has satis- 
factorily explained the phenomena of matter and mind, 
in and out of man ; which is the last and best develop- 
ment of the sublime relations between mankind and 
the next higher sphere of existence." 

" Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would 
not have you ignorant." I have never denied, but have 
uniformly taught that the law of mediumship is an im- 
mutable law ; and, progressively, from time to time, I 
have given illustrations, in my experience, and by quo- 
tations from various mediums, of the fact of communi- 
cation between the two worlds. But because, solely 
for the sake of the exact truth in these things, I have 
made a distinction, which exists in the very constitution 
of things, between seeing and being impressed, inde- 
pendently, and the more passive and receptive state of 
mediumship ; therefore arose all this injurious misun- 
derstanding and misrepresentation, which has effec- 
tually prevented new converts to Spiritualism from 
reading my works, besides delighting the supporters of 
the dismal creeds and conservative churches. 

In vain, ever and anon, reference is made to the 
correct explanations in the first part of " Nature's 
Divine .Revelations." That work is on every hand 
styled the author's first and only great production ; and 
yet, when a question arises which that book alone can 
answer, it is easily counted of little moment. Who 
knows all about mediumship? or all about clairvoy- 
ance ? Not a living man or woman knows all there is 
to be known about the underlying principles and pro- 



240 APPENDIX. 

gressive possibilities of these correlated, yet very dis- 
similar, human mental conditions. Who does not long 
to know the truth about it all % Who does not long to 
behold the windows of heaven opened, so that the facts 
of a natural future life shall become as positive as any 
facts in science % Exactly what that state was, " by and 
through " which the first great work was spoken — and 
by means of which state all the author's subsequent 
and present information was and is received — is the 
question now to be answered. 

About midway between the two conditions — between 
the third and fourth state — the mind loses almost all 
its sympathy with the external organs of sensation ; 
that is, the five senses are closed ; then " the mind 
becomes free from the organization," except as it is 
connected by the internal tie (composed of the elements 
of which, after death, the spiritual body is made) ; and 
" this condition stands in analogy to that natural state 
of physical disunion known as death." (See pp. 30, 
37.) " The body at this time is dormant and inactive 
in all its parts," except the negative vital action which 
is constantly kept up and controlled by the united 
forces of the magnetizer and the magnetizee. 

This is the condition of independent clairvoyance 
induced by magnetism. Magnetism seems indispensa- 
ble when the subject is too youthful and physically too 
immature and weak to enter the condition voluntarily. 
This condition attained, what follows ? On page 38 
the language is : " The medium existing between 
thought and thought, between mind and mind ... is 
the only active, pervading medium which I am depend- 
ent on for the conception of thought, and for the per- 



APPENDIX. 24:1 

ception of all things of a refined, ethereal, or spiritual 
constitution." 

But there is a passage in the next paragraph, on the 
same page, that is more emphatic and unqualified : " I 

AM NOT IMPULSED OR IMPRESSED BY THE THOUGHTS OR 

feelings of a foreign person, though lam cognizant 
of them through the medium above termed ethereal." 

Now turn to page 40, and read : " When the mind 
becomes free from the organization " — that is, free of 
the sense of weight and bulk which arise from the 
material, which is the freedom of matter natural to the 
spiritual condition — then the mind " passes into a new 
sphere of existence." 

The explanation follows on the same page, thus : All 
truth, all ideas, all principles, etc., " converge to one 
focus. This I call the Fountain, the Sun, etc. This 
is the great positive Power ; all subordinate existence 
is negative." Then comes the explanation that there 
are many circles, wheels, or spheres. Adjoining this, 
our first sphere, is another, the Second Sphere. In this 
next sphere there is a centre composed of the ethereal 
wine of all things beneath its exalted station in the 
universe. 

Here comes (see page 41) the most positive testimony, 
thus : " From this Focus [in the Summerland, remem- 
ber] I receive impressions of the many and varied prin- 
ciples," etc. ..." When I pass from the body [that 
is, rise above all the entangling alliances proceeding 
from a sense of the organs and weight of the body], it 
is not the distance, the indefinite space through which 
the mind proceeds " [sees], but it is the superior condi- 
tion attained, or, in the peculiar language there used, "it 
11 



242 APPENDIX. 

is the metamorphosis of the principle of mind to its 
Second Sphere of existence." 

Then follows a reaffirmation, synoptically : " To this 
centre, to this focus, to the great positive power of this 
sphere ... I go to receive information." 

The question here arises : " Do not individual spirits, 
at this centre, impart to your mind the information 
which you return with % " The anwer is given on the 
same page : " As the mind generates thought by coming 
in contact [through the senses, of course] with external 
exciting causes in the natural body, so this Mind [that 
is, the combined mental possessions and developments 
of the Second Sphere], so this Focus " creates in my 
mind parallel ideas, which I term Impressions." 

But you exclaim : " I don't comprehend it at all." 
Yery likely. In the volume under consideration (see 
page 42) the fact is thus stated : " The ultimate perfec- 
tion of all substances, the ethereal existences of spiritual 
spheres, and the means [and method] by which I receive 
impressions are evident to me / but so greatly different 
[is this experience] from anything familiar to the natu- 
ral mind . . . that it is impossible at this moment to 
make these things evident to your senses." 

You still insist that my mind must be instructed by 
some particular u band of spirits." If this was the 
truth, I would be most happy to announce the fact. 
Bat you read on pages 42 and 43 this unqualified addi- 
tional explanation : " When I pass off [that is, rise above 
the oppressive sense of a physical body] into the indepen- 
dent state of clairvoyance to receive impressions, I receive 
them as the knowledge of the essence of the substance 
which I had a previous desire to investigate. . . . there 



APPENDIX. 243 

1 DO NOT HAYE ANY COUNSELLOR OB INFORMER. . . . I do 

not observe entities as they would be naturally known 
to exist." One broad and extensive light pervades all 
the Second Sphere, which " light is the medium of per- 
ception and association." Further on (see page 44) you 
read : " It is impossible by words to convey a full and 
adequate conception of the manner in which I arrive 
at truth. . . . My information is not derived from any 

PERSONS THAT EXIST IN THE SPHERE INTO WHICH MY MIND 

enters ; but it [the information] is the result of a law 
of truth emanating from the Great Positive Mind, and 
pervading all spheres of existence." Tn accordance with 
this Law, " truth is attracted to, and is received by, the 
mind." 

Attentive readers need not be reminded in this con- 
nection that the author has many times explained fully 
what steps are necessary to the attainment of this inte- 
rior condition. What care must be taken in physical 
habits, in foods, in drinks, in exercise, in sleep, the best 
time of day for investigation, how long it should be con- 
tinued, etc. And the same reader is fully aware that I 
have also given the explicit laws and conditions under 
which, and by means of which, the differing states of 
medinmship may be reached, and safely employed in 
the interest of truth, for the advancement of our univer- 
sal humanity. And furthermore, the candid and con- 
scientious reader will bear witness that I have nowhere, 
or at any time, attempted to exalt the " superior condi- 
tion " to the disadvantage of the conditions of medium- 
ship. Whenever a distinction has been distinctly made 
and emphasized, it was solely and invariably in the in- 
terest of the whole and exact truth, and never with any 



244 APPENDIX. 

hope or desire of unfavorably reflecting upon, or in the 
least, overshadowing any person's sincere experience in 
things spiritual. To my mind there is a manifest spir- 
itual presence dwelling with many of the more quiet 
mediums, which brings a peacefulness and a heavenly 
satisfaction, while it augments, in the religious affec- 
tions, the natural delight which is often awakened by 
the spirit of truth, opening up on every side the win- 
dows of the firmament, and letting in upon human 
hearts and homes the golden glories and sweet gladness 
of immortality. 

Believe me, O friendly reader ! You assume a seri- 
ous risk when you seek for, and indulge in, too frequent 
communication with invisible intelligences through over- 
worked business mediums ; and believe me your risk is 
not less dangerous when, indiscriminately, you practice 
such intercourse by and through your own unregulated 
sensibilities. 

Before me is a letter just received from a person who 
has made the last-named mistake. It is a touching appeal 
for sympathy and counsel in a serious crisis. He says, 
" It is not necessary for you to tell me that spirits are 
around me. I have received positive assurance of it! 
What I wish to know is — Must I do as they say f They 
tell me to act like a crazy man. Now must I do it? or 
must my conscience tell me what to do ? " etc., etc. 

Need I record here my reply to him ? and which is 
what I would say to all? Substantially, I said: 
" When a ' spirit ' or a ' mortal ' tells you and urges you 
to say or to do anything foolish, weak, wicked, or unrea- 
sonable, when judged in the light of your highest judg- 
ment, reject it at once, and forever expel from your con- 



APPENDIX. 245 

fidence and society both the principal and the confede- 
rate (or medium) of such counsel. Follow the highest 
convictions of your reasoning and intuitive faculties. 
Reason, which, when pure, is unbiassed, is a far better 
guide than either c spirits,' or what generally passes for 
1 conscience.' " Because much of conscience, so-called, 
is too often the result of situation, education, etc." 

Such was and is my answer. But, alas ! I know too 
well that pure impersonal Reason, because it is the best 
light and highest authority, will be the very last which 
mankind will listen to and obey. Everything else, both 
cheap and costly, will be first tried. The truth, not 
personal and private benefits, is what you want and 
seek, is it not ? This motive is admitted. Kow whether 
the differing phases of mediumship, or whether the ex- 
ercise of independent clairvoyance, is the speedier and 
the safer method for the discovery of truth — which, in 
short, is the better, the higher, the more reliable, and 
most desirable — are questions of lasting psychological 
importance, and believe me, respected reader, these 
problems are questions which coming generations of 
more analytical and more impartial investigators can 
and will settle for themselves far better than we can, 
while in the heat and dust and excitement of " making 
history " in cur special individual private and semi- dog- 
matic mills. 

And I tell you, brethren, that it is insufferably foolish, 
because it is weak and superficial, to array the " say so " 
of one medium or spirit against the " say so " of another 
medium or spirit ; for when you subject these several 
and conflicting statements to the crucible of pure Rea- 
son, you will discover frequently, that they are of the 



246 APPENDIX. 

first importance as testimony and of no importance as 
evidence. And, furthermore, it is diabolical to generate 
prejudicial differences between persons in the same 
field of usefulness ; for there are too many coteries and 
class-antagonisms in our primary new school of Pro- 
gression. " One saith, I am of Paul ; another, I am 
of Apollos." But are such friends real friends ? Are 
such reformers real reformers? We read their con- 
demnation on every hand. " The ways of wisdom 
are ways of pleasantness ; " and all truth-seekers in 
these paths look peaceful, powerful, reliable, and happy. 
Prove all things. — The result of long years of contact 
with mediumship has recently cropped out in the form 
of a proposition to "try the spirits." An authority 
among Spiritualists, and a writer and traveller of much 
distinction, says : 

" Spiritualists must test controlling spirits more thoroughly in the 
future than they have in the past. And spirits who object to being 
reasonably tested, reveal at once their moral unsoundness and spiri- 
tual unfitness to be the controlling guides of earthly sensitives. In- 
asmuch as the heavens and hells are both open to earth ; and inas- 
much as these immortal intelligencies stand behind the screen or, 
apostolically speaking, behind ' a glass,' that even the most lucid 
clairvoyants see through but ' darkly,' would any spiiit, after seance 
had been opened with reading, singing, and invocation or prayer, 
demur at some such test as this : — ' In the presence of God, who is 
here and everywhere ; in the presence of the Christ-spirit of love 
and truth ; in the presence of angels and ever-attending spirits ; in 
the presence of these mortal friends now assembled; and in the 
presence of, and before the judgment seat of my own soul — I 
solemnly affirm that I am the spirit of the person who, when living 
in an earthly body, was known by the name of , residing in .' " 

The administration of this " iron-clad oath " would 
be attended with a great variety of dangers and demo- 



APPENDIX. 247 

ralizations. As a rule, any man or spirit, or any media- 
torial representative thereof, who would submit to such 
an oath, would be tempted, by a secret perverseness 
natural to the mental constitution, to rebel against me- 
chanical justice and restraint, and perjury would be 
the first step in such rebellion. Our truest men only 
affirm; they " swear not at all." The solemnity of a 
Bible-oath is diluted by the insulting doubt of personal 
veracity which it implies. Hypocrites and other digni- 
fied enemies of pure truth, like the natural moral cow- 
ards of society, are the most ready to pledge their 
word " on the Bible." What is true in common society 
about us, would be more than reflected, nay, it would 
be diabolically practiced, by the spirit oath-makers who 
would gladly pay this price to be wholly believed by 
their credulous admirers. 

Fearless criticism necessary. — Again, the distin- 
guished author, whose eloquent description of the " su- 
perior condition " is given in the first chapter in this 
volume, has manfully opened his batteries upon the 
enemies within the household of Faith, in these well- 
chosen words : 



"I will not disguise the fact that, as a people, we are too much 
disposed to accept everything that comes to us in the abused name 
of Spiritualism. We have permitted this too long. Our sublime 
philosophy has become a packhorse — a patient beast of burden that 
staggers under a vast load of monstrous absurdities and moral trum- 
pery. The public should be made to understand that we are not 
a mere transportation company. We must get rid of our heavy 
freight, or the better class of passengers will take another line. The 
evils that he in our way are quite too general to admit of the restric- 
tion of a personal application. It is time to stop the child's play of 
closing the eyes, opening the mouth and swallowing ; for why should 



248 APPENDIX. 

the function of deglutition in a Spiritualist embrace everything 
deleterious and unclean ? We make use of sieves and strainers in 
the kitchen, but seldom in the library. We winnow the grain we 
eat, and niter the water we drink, and why not sift our literatures. 
We strain at gnats in air or water, and swallow an invoice of scor- 
pions and a nest of adders in a bad book." 

The genuine metal and strength of the foregoing 
criticism are quite as applicable to the claims and dis- 
closures of independent clairvoyants. 

For the twentieth time the author affirms his own 
most sincere desire to possess the truth — the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth — upon any of the questions 
which have agitated his mind and fallen under his pen ; 
and the same fearless, frank, truth-seeking inspection 
and analysis, which it is proposed should be meted out 
to any waitings in the fold, he again invites and now 
prays in all sincerity may be as freely and fully meted 
out to and upon anything which is legitimately and 
rightfully associated with his name. 

For it is time that all partition walls and class-preju- 
dices should be overthrown. It is time that we, of the 
New Dispensation, should stand shoulder to shoulder, 
and heart to heart, faithful and loving sisters and 
brothers, as one mighty army of invincible Progres- 
sives ; in order that we may assail and conquer the vast 
array of institutionalized forces which are to-day dril- 
ling and entrenching for the terrible conflict. 



APPENDIX. 249 



(6.) 
A PKEDICTIOE" GRADUALLY FULFILLED. 

The following is presented, as one instance, in reply- 
to the question : " Do yon ever realize the fulfillment 
of Spiritual predictions?" 

In 1853, in the city of Hartford, State of Connecti- 
cut, the author (under a spiritnalization fully explained 
in the "Present Age and Inner Life," page 142, new 
edition), recorded these words : 

" Japan, . . . Western nations think thee abandoned to the 
night of Ignorance — buried in the depths of Idolatry. . . . Nay, 
Japan ! We [her attorneys and guardians residing in the Summerland] 
behold thee as thou art — the Admirer of the Beauties of Mind ; the 
Patron of elegant manners ; the Friend of Education. . . . Let 
the Western nations enter thy gates. . . . Unite, O Japan, in the 
cry of the world, ' Love universal and Justice ? ' Let this be pro- 
claimed, O Emperor ! from thy lofty places." 

To make this plain, some remarkable data and certain 
recent events are now in order. The above was written 
twenty-five years ago. The present Emperor, the Mika- 
do of Japan, was then a mere babe, about one year old, 
having been born in 1852. This Japanese infant, whose 
royal blood had flowed through one hundred and twen- 
ty-two generations, and consequently whose imperial 
dynasty dated far anterior to any European family of 
kings, was destined to carry into effect the will of the 
celestial delegates. He ascended the throne of Japan 
11* 



250 APPENDIX. 

before his sixteenth year, in 1868, having received the 
title of Prince eight years previously, in 1860. 

Christians have a delightful consolatory theory that 
they are the " chosen people " — the favorites of Grod, 
being the only branch of the human family from which 
the kingdom of heaven is populated. But the exist- 
ence of such a delegation, whose tender and eloquent 
address to Japan begins this section, refutes the gra- 
cious theory of the modest followers of the meek and 
lowly one. Now it seems that from the Summerland, 
over twenty-five years ago, we received the first reliable 
intelligence concerning the actual condition and dispo- 
sition of the people of Japan. This fact reflects se- 
verely upon the historical information spread through 
the world by Christian writers and travellers in the East. 
By these we are told of the idolatrous ignorance, of the 
universal degradation, of the heathenish viciousness, 
and of the unbridled rascalities of the Japanese popula- 
tion. But, pouring down from the bright skies over- 
head, there comes the truth — that those same heathen 
are constitutionally great worshippers of things spiritual 
— " admirers of the beauties of the Mind ; " that they 
are naturally a civil and polite people, "the patrons of 
elegant manners ; " that they are lovers of true know- 
ledge, and opposed to ignorance — naturally " the friends 
of education." 

All these attractive communications from the celes- 
tial envoys and attorneys of Japan would continue to be 
rejected by Christians, and the misstatements of their 
own missionaries would still pass for truth in Christen- 
dom, were it not for the developments of the past few 
years, during which the Mikado has " opened his mystic 



APPENDIX. 251 

gates " to the Western nations not only, but, what is of 
paramount importance, he has freely joined his voice 
" in the cry of the world for universal love and justice," 
which cry was not long since officially " proclaimed from 
his lofty places ! " 

In order that all this may be demonstrated to the 
common understanding, I will here give in full the 
youthful Mikado's own address to his ambassadors, at a 
dinner given to them in his palace, on the eve of their 
departure to America. The inspired Emperor, taking 
the lead of all the daimios, and of all the ex-governors 
who had controlled the provinces, assembled the mem- 
bers of his embassy around a table in his palace at 
Tokai, and thus addressed them : 

" After careful study and observation, I am deeply impressed with 
the belief that the most powerful and enlightened nations of the 
world are those who have made diligent effort to cultivate their 
minds, and sought to develop their country in the fullest and most 
perfect manner. Thus convinced, it becomes my responsible duty, 
as a sovereign, to lead our people wisely in a way to attain for them 
results equally beneficial ; and their duty is to assist diligently and 
unitedly in all efforts to attain these ends. How, otherwise, can 
Japan advance and sustain herself upon an independent footing 
among the nations of the world ? From you, nobles of this realm, 
whose dignified position is honored and conspicuous in the eyes of 
the people at large, I ask and expect conduct well becoming your 
exalted position — ever calculated to indorse, by your personal exam- 
ple, those goodly precepts to be employed hereafter in elevating the 
masses of our people. I have to-day assembled your honorable body 
in our presence-chamber, that I might first express to you my inten- 
tions, and, in foreshadowing my policy, also impress you all with the 
fact that both this Government and people will expect from you 
diligence and wisdom while leading and encouraging those in your 
several districts to move forward in paths of progress. Remember 
your responsibility to your country is both great and important. 



252 APPENDIX. 

Whatever our natural capacity for intellectual development, dili- 
gent effort and cultivation are required to attain successful re- 
sults. If we would profit by the useful arts and sciences and condi- 
tions of society prevailing- among more enlightened nations, we muse 
either study these at home as best we can, or send abroad an expedi- 
tion of practical observers to foreign lands, competent to acquire for 
us those things our people lack which are best calculated to benefit 
this nation. Travel in foreign countries, properly indulged in, will 
increase your store of useful knowledge ; and although some of you 
may be advanced in age, unfitted for the vigorous study of new ways, 
all may bring back to our people much valuable information. Great 
national defects require immediate remedies. We lack superior in- 
stitutions for high female culture. Our women should not be igno- 
rant of those great principles on which the happiness of daily life 
frequently depends. How important the education of mothers, on 
whom future generations almost wholly rely for the early cultivation 
of fchose intellectual tastes which an enlightened system of training 
is designed to develop ! Liberty is therefore granted wives and sis- 
ters to accompany their relatives on foreign tours, that they may 
acquaint themselves with better forms of female education, and, on 
their return, introduce beneficial improvements in the training of our 
children. With diligent and united efforts manifested by all classes 
and conditions of people throughout the empire, we may attain suc- 
cessively the highest degrees of civilization within our reach, and 
shall experience no serious difficulty in maintaining power, independ- 
ence, and respect among nations. To you, nobles, I look for the in- 
dorsement of these views ; fulfil my best expectations by carrying 
out these suggestions ; and you will perform faithfully your indi- 
vidual duties to the satisfaction of the people of Japan." 

Turn now to page 143 of the " Present Age," etc., and 
compare what you there find — the unqualified affirma- 
tions there made, the work mapped out, and the half- 
prophetic instructions there imparted — with the aboye 
address of the inspired young Emperor, and with yet 
other facts recently developed, and then conclude in 
your own mind how much real evidence exists to estab- 
lish the claim of spiritual intercourse. Bear in mind 



APPENDIX. 253 

the fact, that, during the last ten years, under the pre- 
monitory instructions of the youthful Mikado, and aided 
by the wealth of the empire, about one thousand young 
men of Japan have been sent into our Western institu- 
tions to learn of our wisdom and knowledge. The thirst 
for universal education thus entered the heart of the 
Eastern realm. Our language and laws, our habitations 
and habits, onr agriculture and manufactures, our engi- 
neering and railroading, our public schools and sectarian 
religions, our artistic skill and scientific achievements, 
our universal love and equal justice to all — our presi- 
dential amusements, too ! our revolutionary propensi- 
ties, our republican institutions, and our methods of 
government — all these, and millions of lesser lights in 
our civilization, of which our pictures and our literature 
are not the least, are now visited by the Japanese, to the 
end that mankind may enter upon an era of love, justice, 
and brotherhood. 



(7.) 

OEIGIN OF THE SCRIPTUKES. 

"Please explain the origin of the Bible," is asked 
by a correspondent. Briefly, this is my answer : The 
universally adored volume of Christendom was origin- 
ated and arranged into a (so-called) unimpeachable 
authority about two hundred years after the martyrdom 
of Jesus. In the year a. d. 218 the Vulgate form of 
the existing Bible was established. Of course all Protes- 



254 APPENDIX. 

tants will thank all Catholics for collecting and preserv- 
ing the manuscripts which compose what is called 
" The Word of God." 

All known bibles were, as to their contents, " given 
by inspiration ; " and are (or may be made) profitable 
for doctrine, for rebuke, for development, for growth in 
spirituality and goodness ; but let no ecclesiastical tri- 
bunal exalt a dead booh above the divine living light 
that is a part of each liuman mind. 

There are, however, prophetic revelations. Before 
Christianity, so-called, was a century old, the inspired 
St. John (inspired just as every medium is, more or less) 
experienced, on the Isle of Patmos, an apocalyptical 
awakening of his most interior perceptions. The dis- 
closures of St. John in his " Revelation " have enter- 
tained and puzzled sinners, ministers, and followers 
equally for about seventeen hundred and eighty-five 
years. It is certain that the remarkable visions and 
predictions of the medium of Patmos can be compre- 
hended and measured, as to their real import and true 
value, only by and through a careful study of analogous 
experiences and apocrypha written mediumistically 
within memory of the present generation. 

Looking afar for a blessing, instead of just at your 
feet, where the richest diamond lies hidden in the coarse 
sand, illustrates the difference between a fool and a 
philosopher. 



APPENPIX. 255 



(8.) 
SOUKCES OF THE WORLD'S WEALTH. 

"What was man's first and most natural occupa- 
tion \ " To this I am impressed to reply : Sixteen 
hundred years before the advent of Christianity, the 
science and essential dignity of agriculture were anti- 
cipated. As far back in human history as the age of 
pyramids, when the Egyptians were successful earth- 
workers, the profession of husbandry was recognized 
and exalted as the basic business^of mankind. 

Triptolemus claimed to have been taught agriculture 
by an angel ; instructed by a divinity bending over 
him out of the heavens, how to plow, to sow, to reap, 
aud to make excellent corn-bread. In the Eleusinian 
Mysteries, or rather in Oriental mythology, this great 
scientific earth-worker was helped by a goddess (an 
augel ?) to communicate " what he knew about farm- 
ing." But, owing to the law of progression, it has 
come to pass that even editors have become like unto 
the gods, " knowing good and evil." And in these 
proud and pompous times, the aid of goddesses and 
ministering angels are by many counted undignified 
and superfluous ; and yet journalists are easily trans- 
formed into aspiring candidates for office, while the 
earth is surrounded by illiterate explorers, and forced 
to yield to the authority of science. 

The sources of the world's wealth are two : first, the 



256 APPENDIX. 

Land, second, the Sea ; and agriculture is to the former 
what commerce is to the latter ; but the master science 
of all material sciences is that by which the earth is 
conquered and made to blossom as the rose. ... I can 
discern a time when mankind will control the produc- 
tion and the distribution of rain. Already the signal 
office of the United States is handling three instruments 
— the thermometer, the barometer, the telegraph, and 
(possibly) the telephone. And yet other instruments 
and scientific means will ere long be employed for the 
special benefit of fruit-growers aud agriculturists. 



(9.) 
EYILS m THE SOCIAL STEUCTURE. 

A laboring brother, one of the leaders in popular 
" strikes," writes me " for a few words of light on the 
Labor Question." 

Answer. — The incessantly toiling millions in the 
social organism find themselves, by force of circumstan- 
ces, in a state of chronic antagonism toward the wealthy 
and powerful. Their interests, their tastes, their privi- 
leges, their prospects, stand in open opposition to each 
other. Capital tends to centralization ; labor, to free 
distribution. Wealth seeks monopoly as its most nat- 
ural fortification, and the reins of government as a 
means of its perpetuation ; while Poverty instinctively 
seeks freedom and democratic independence, as its 



APPENDIX. 257 

most natural birthright and the only road to happiness. 
The h'rst child of communism is christened " Coopera- 
tion ; " while the first born of wealth is called " Mono- 
poly." The fight between these forces in society gener- 
ally ends in the defeat of labor ; because the centres of 
Wealth can afford to " rest and wait," while the coopera- 
tive societies " strike and starve ; " and the contest ends 
by the surrender of dying Poverty, which then yields 
everything — brain, bone, muscle, time, rights, princi- 
ples. 

Communism dreams of an equal distribution of the 
accumulations of generations ; so that no one can be 
rich, while for only a brief period every one would be 
equally poor. Industrial and intellectual stagnation 
would be the immediate effect. The equal distribution 
of poverty is equivalent to paralysis of individual 
ambition for invention, conquest, and emoluments. 
Wealth flows into reservoirs as naturally as water 
accumulates in lakes. The true philosophical remedy 
for social evils and injustice, and the pains of Poverty, 
consists in the application of the principles of love, jus- 
tice, and eternal truth to the Constitution of the 
general Government, and to the State laws under which 
society exists and civilization advances. To this end 
we welcome all these rebellions and threatenings of the 
working millions. Strikes, processions, communal out- 
rages, international societary combinations against both 
capital and government — all, all, are steps most indis- 
pensable to the reconstruction of Government, and to 
the reorganization of Society upon principles of univer- 
sal love, truth, and justice. 



258 APPENDIX. 



(10.) 
ORIGIN OF THE DEVIL DOCTRINE. 

For scores of centuries, preceding the era of Coperni- 
cus, the hyper-metaphysical Orientals believed unques- 
tioningly in the hollowness and stationariness of our 
globe. (It seems that, in our own bright day and en- 
lightened generation, the " hollow " dogma of the very 
ancient cosmogony has been revived for the entertain- 
ment of our fellow-citizens worshipping west of the 
Alleghanies.) But, happily, the dogma of old earth's 
flatness and immovableness has been kindly omitted. 
The proposition that spirits or. gods construct the worlds 
of space, and not the reverse — that the worlds manu- 
facture and evolve the gods — is of very ancient root, and 
holds some fragments of truth, like alchemy, astrology, 
and the other marvellous developments of mankind's 
intellectual childhood. 

The bottomless pit, wherein Apollyon reigned su- 
preme, was an old eastern fancy called " Hades " — an 
immense world of darkness, a dread after-death region, 
believed to be fixed deep under the immovable earth. 
The author of " Arabian Nights " gives full, picturesque, 
and tragic expression to this fearful dream of mankind's 
religious childhood. All fallen genii, according to this 
writer, had dwelling-places in the bowels of great 
mountains. They ascended from their dread abodes 
beneath the world. But, long prior to the Arabian 
stories, the doctrine of a bottomless pit and of fallen 



APPENDIX. 259 

genii prevailed in many portions of the East. The 
Babylonians and the Chaldeans made heavy contribu- 
tion to this theory. The word Satan was of Chaldean 
origin. Lucifer is the Latin for a Hebrew term — Hellel 
— employed first by Isaiah in describing the fall of 
Babylon : " How hast thou fallen from heaven, oh 
Hellel, star of the morning % " Lucifer, who was ori- 
ginally the morning light, stands now for the Apollyon 
mentioned by John as the Destroyer, and as the Devil 
who tempted Eve, circumvented the beneficent plans of 
the Almighty, damned the human race, and made the 
theological scheme of salvation a spiritual as well as a 
military necessity. 

But the true vital origin of the doctrine of a hell and 
devil, is this : 

Mankind, like individuals, conceive badly when 
badly diseased. Evil dreams mean either a physical or 
a mental disorder. Ancestors live in the ceils of your 
brain. Their imperfections and passions may come to 
action and to speech only in your dreams at night ; or 
your own personal defects may of themselves act and 
speak in your night-time entertainments. Apollyon is 
the creation of a spiritual nightmare in religion. A 
fallen Lucifer, " Star of the Morning," is a childish ex- 
planation of evil and its punishment. Evil angels, in- 
fernal spirits, devils, come to the imaginations of dis- 
cordant and superstitious persons. Inherited imperfec- 
tions of either mind or body twist and blister the glass 
in the windows of the soul, so that seeing accurately is 
well-nigh impossible ; the consequences are a number 
of corresponding imperfections in your feelings, per- 
ceptions, and religion. 



260 APPENDIX. 



(11.) 

THE FIRST DOCTOK OF DIVINITY. 

I am asked why so many good and scholarly men are 
doctoring divinity. In answer, I beg to refer to the 
great King David, whose special friend had a reputa- 
tion for wisdom which exceeded that of any other man 
in the Jewish nation. He was a great counseller and 
judicial functionary, and among his friends it was said 
that he " knew the whole mind of God." Doubtless, 
therefore, Ahithophel was the first regular recognized 
Doctor of Divinity ; of which important class, in 
America, there are upwards of five thousand, main- 
tained at enormous salaries. But their great original 
(Ahithophel), when, at last, his counsels were contemp- 
tuously rejected, got upon the back of an ass, rode 
home to his family, explained to them the wisdom and 
economy of suicide under the circumstances, then with- 
drew into a retired room of his own house and hanged 
himself. But modern Ahithophels, who are conspicu- 
ously unlike their magnanimous prototype, when their 
dogmatic ideas of' " the whole mind of God " are re- 
jected, seem strongly tempted to maintain their author- 
ity with dignity, and hang their opponents. But these 
modern times are different ; and we cannot expect that 
our Doctors of Divinity should follow the example of 
their great predecessor, Ahithophel. 



APPENDIX. 261 



(12.) 
THE CHAKGE OF ATHEISM. 

Correspondents ask me to explain exactly what this 
terra means. Strictly speaking, atheism is a denial by 
another of the existence of the God in which yon have 
been educated to believe. Denial of this kind may be 
honest, and ought not to subject a person to reproach. 
But there is, I think, an absolute atheism which consists 
in a wilful rejection of what you believe is strictly 
just and true. This is a godless state of mind ; being 
at once unconscious of, and disobedient to, the laws of 
the eternal good that is within you. A mind in this 
atheistic condition is of necessity in the world without 
God and Hope. Its punishment consists principally 
in the absence of light, affection, hope, and happiness. 
This kind of atheism is not punished arbitrarily in the 
future state by an infliction of suffering, but rather by 
deprivations ) which is a species of spiritual loneliness 
and starvation — a most natural result of this, the most 
deplorable and desolate of all forms of negation. 

Belief in the positive existence and superintendence 
of a Supreme Power, is as natural and congenial to 
the human heart as disbelief in the necessary limitation 
of the personality of God is natural to the well-balanced 
human intellect. You perceive the distinction here 
made between the heart and head ; that is, between 
Intuition and Intellect. The first, of the heart, is 



262 APPENDIX. 

called Deism ; the second, of the head, Atheism. But 
there is neither merit nor demerit in either direction. 
Because no human spirit, in its affections, can deny its 
fountain source ; any more than any thinking human 
mind, in its thoughts, can adopt and believe in a God 
with personality and measurable boundaries. 



(13.) 

THE LAWS OF DISTANCES IN" THE SOLAR 
SYSTEM. 

" What is the present state of astronomical knowledge concerning 
the distances of the planets from the sun ? " 

Answer. — The inventor and author of the Celestial 
Indicator (a most perfect instrument for teaching as- 
tronomy *) has given the best popular synopsis as fol- 
lows : 

The planets all revolve in slightly elliptical orbits around the sun, 
having an axial motion eastward like the sun. Their orbital paths 
are nearly parallel to each other, crossing the Ecliptic at small and 
varied angles, and the planets vary of course in the length of their 
time of revolution, as well as in their axial motion, as their size, 
density, and distances vary. 

Those that are farthest off travel the slowest, and they gradually 
increase in speed, the nearer their orbits are to the sun. Mercury 
being the nearest to the sun is the swiftest in its motions. Its dis- 

* Address the "Bryant Celestial Indicator Co.," Hartford, Ct., 
for further information. 



APPENDIX. 263 

tance from the sun is thirty-five million miles ; its periodic time, 
eighty-eight days ; its diameter, about three thousand miles. 

The next is Venus, whose distance is sixty-six million miles ; 
periodic time, two hundred and twenty-four days ; diameter, seven 
thousand five hundred miles. These are called the inferior planets, 
because their orbits are within that of the earth. 

Next in order is the Earth, on which we live, whose distance from 
the sun is about ninety -two million miles ; its periodic time three 
hundred and sixty -five and one-quarter days ; its diameter, about 
eight thousand miles. Of the superior planets (outside of the earth's 
orbit) the first is Mars, distant from the sun one hundred and thirty- 
nine million miles ; its periodic time being six hundred and eighty- 
six days, and its diameter about four thousand miles. The next in 
order are the asteroids, small planets ; a large number have been 
discovered, sweeping in vast orbits around the sun in a region be- 
tween Mars and Jupiter ; orbits somewhat more eccentric than those 
of the larger planets, and making greater angles with the Ecliptic. 
They are invisible except through the telescope. They are supposed 
to have once formed a large planet, which from some unknown cause 
was blown to atoms. A planet seems to be wanted in this region, 
in order to satisfy our conceptions of symmetry in the solar system. 

Next to the Asteroids is Jupiter, whose distance from the sun is 
four hundred and seventy-five million miles, its periodic time four 
thousand three hundred and thirty-two days, and its diameter 
eighty-eight thousand miles. 

Next to Jupiter is Saturn, its distance from the sun being eight 
hundred and seventy-two million miles, its periodic time ten thou- 
sand seven hundred and sixty-nine days, and its diameter seventy- 
two thousand miles. 

Then comes Uranus, one billion seven hundred and fifty-three mil- 
lion miles from the sun, its periodic time thirty thousand six hun- 
dred and eighty-six days, and its diameter thirty-three thousand 
miles. And last and most remote of the eight is Neptune, at the 
enormous distance of two billion seven hundred and forty- six mil- 
lion miles from the sun, its per odic time being sixty thousand one 
hundred and twenty-six days, and its diameter thirty-seven thousand 
miles. And here, as far as we know, is the limit of our planetary 
system, though numerous comets sweep far beyond it. 

What a vast circle this last or outside planet must describe in its 



264 APPENDIX. 

circuit around the sun ? too far away to be seen except with the 
telescope, while yet its relations with the sun are such as to bring 

it through its course in a given time with wonderful precision 

All these planets and their moons have an axial motion eastward in 
the direction of their orbital motion. How is this ? Did they once 
belong to the body of the sun ? Modern science has located the eun 
in space, and called it a fixed star. Undoubtedly it is ; and it is 
also supposed to be a variable star. Its diameter is eight hundred 
and fifty-two thousand miles. 

Professor Stephen Alexander, of Princeton College, 
presented before the National Academy of Sciences, 
last October, the following table relative to the aphelion 
and perihelion (or the extreme) distance of the planets. 

Ratio. Planet. Law. 

— Neptune 30. 057 mean distance 

| Uranus 20.038 aphelion 

■£ Saturn 10.019 aphelion 

£ Jupiter 5.009 perihelion 

$ Asteroids 2.505 near mean value 

| Mars 1.670 aphelion 1.644 +0.026 

§ Earth 1.113 aphelion 1.035 +0.078 

f Venus , . . . .742 aphelion .749 -0.007 

£ Mercury 371 mean distance .387 —0.016 

Two-thirds of the mean distance of Neptune is the aphelion distance 
of Uranus. One-half this is the aphelion distance of Saturn. One-half 
of this is the perihelion distance of Jupiter. The ratios in the other 
cases will be seen from the table. The figures in all save three cases 
are the aphelion distances. Jupiter and Mercury form exceptions. 
Neptune, a seeming exception, is not really one. It is the starting 
point, and its distance is not a derived but an underived quantity. 
Incidentally, the necessity for using the mean distance of Neptune 
goes to show that it is the outer planet of the system. Jupiter, the 
master spirit of the whole, requires its perihelion distance to be used. 
This is the case with the largest members of the systems of satellites. 
Mercury is a double planet and its mean distance is used. The unit 
of measure employed is the earth's mean distance from the sun. 
These ratios are remarkably simple, and the correspondence between 



Fact. 


Difference. 


30.057 


0.000 


20.043 


-0.005 


10.000 


+0.019 


4.978 


+0.031 



APPENDIX. 265 

the law and the fact is very close. Many investigators have endea- 
vored to find the phyllotachi series of fractions (-£, £ , f, etc. ) in the 
ratios of the periodic times of the planets. Phyllotaxis is a botani- 
cal term and deals with the arrangement of the leaves upon the 
stem. This arrangement is known to follow mathematical laws, and 
the law is expressed in the phyllotachi series. Professor Alexander 
called attention to the fact that the first two of the series are the 
same as the ratios found between the aphelion distances of the 
planets. He did not attach particular significance to this, but 
thought the coincidence worthy of mentioning. 



(14.) 
MODEKX PHASES OF INFIDELITY. 

1 ' Mr. Davis, 

"Dear Sir: — Last evening, our minister, the Rev. Dr. S., 
preached upon the ' Phases of Infidelity. ' They were as follows : 
Atheism, Pantheism, Deism, Rationalism, and Spiritualism. These 
were defined, and shown to be defective. Concerning Rationalism, 
he said : ' It teaches that the Scriptures are not from God ; that 
Paul was no more inspired than Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, or Andrew Jackson Davis.' He criticised Spiritualism 
most severely, and said that it 'played the part of the religious 
clown ; it is made up of the odds and ends of all creeds, all absurdi- 
dities and all characters.' Now, sir, will you please make public 
your views upon these phases of skepticism ? 

"Very truly, 

" N. D. T." 

Answer. — The beauty of holiness is as admirable in a 
minister as in any member of his congregation. Telling 
the plain truth in a sermon is as commendable as writ- 
ing it in a book. It is true that the phases of infidelity 



APPENDIX. 

- — which term means a refutation of and disbelief in the 
articles of various sectarian creeds — are five-fingered, 
like the almighty hand of Truth. Providence is showing 
his hand in these latter days, visible to those who have 
light in their eyes, finely proportioned, with four great 
strong, beautiful fingers and a powerful thumb; the 
four are Atheism, Pantheism, Deism, Rationalism, 
but the member of greatest energy, the thumb, is spirit- 
ualism. 

We hail your minister gladly to our ranks. You say 
that he is now a Baptist. He will not, therefore, fear 
to " wade into " the waters of new truth. He criticised 
the thumb " severely," and alluded to it with emphasis, 
and described it in language not lawful for man to utter 
outside of the clergyman's castle. His mistake was 
that he did not discern that what he unhappily termed 
" infidelity " is the great, white hand of Providence, 
having four beautiful fingers and a thumb, just now 
moving over the world with an almighty grasp. 

And, your minister made another mistake! How- 
true it is that mistakes beget misrepresentations, and 
that immediately from them misunderstandings are 
rapidly born, in twins and triplets, until every room in 
one's social and intellectual house is overrun with more 
unpromising children of darkness than is lawful under 
the new rule of " fewer and better." His mistake was 
in the assertion that Rationalism " teaches that the Scrip- 
tures are not from God." For a brief reflection along 
the line of truth would have enlightened his under- 
standing, 

Rational-minded persons, on the contrary, everywhere 
teach that "all scripture, given by inspiration, is profit 



APPENDIX. 267 

able," etc. In this statement you perceive the very ra- 
tional implication which no true minister ever rejected, 
that there is in the world a great mass of " scriptures " 
which is not profitable, because such scriptures were not 
" given by inspiration." But a little mistake, like the 
foregoing, should not be remembered by any one 
against your minister ; for does he not speak the whole 
truth in the next passage — that in the religion of Ra- 
tionalism, "Paul was no more inspired than Thomas 
Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson," etc. Your minister 
never uttered a truer sentence. It is, in fact, far truer 
as it stands than the reverse would have been, namely : 
" that Emerson and Carlyle are no more inspired than 
was Paul." For every candid searcher after religious 
truth knows in the secret places of his own heart that 
Paul's best writings do not contain a tenth part of the 
internal evidence of inspiration from God as do the 
best scriptures of either Emerson or Carlyle. But we 
must remember that your minister said that " Paul was 
no more inspired," etc. ; which is saying a good deal of 
unpopular truth for a minister, and we should be grate- 
ful for it. 

Again : " Spiritualism," he said, " played the part of 
the religious clown." A kind of electrical flush man- 
tled our healthy cheek when we read this assertion. We 
blushed because the remark was like the unexpected 
utterance of a scandal, in which a beloved and pure rel- 
ative was ruthlessly and hopelessly involved. That rel- 
ative is commonly known as " Christianity." Now, the 
very worst that can be said of spiritual manifestations 
is, that they reproduce and re-illustrate the " wonderful 
signs" which followed the early disciples of Christian- 



268 APPENDIX. 

it j. Modern shows of spiritual presence, inspiration, 
and power, are parallel, in every essential detail, to the 
reported " shows " by the primitive founders of our 
before-mentioned beloved relative. Your minister 
should not permit himself to indulge in such slanderous 
imputations. He knows that the mediumistic show of 
" blasting the fig-tree" is not more objectionable than 
was his stigmatization of the old miracles as the plays 
of religious clowns. At this very hour, while I write, 
there are sterling temperance men stumbling headlong 
over the performance at the wedding of Cana — the un- 
fortunate spiritualistic show by which pure " water was 
changed into wine." These performances upon the 
boards of the ancient stage did not exalt either the 
actors or their audiences. And when your minister 
stigmatized modern Spiritualism as a " religious clown," 
we blushed lest superficial minds would reject living 
evidences along with miracles of the early eras, and ex- 
claim, in their foolishness, " There is no God ! Let us 
eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die ! " The 
proverb of those who " live in glass houses should not 
throw stones," and a good many other old saws come up 
for quotation, but we give them the go-by, believing 
that your minister will think the matter over, and we 
hope he will openly recant every mistake in due time. 

And here we would, if we could, gladly take down 
our harp from the weeping willows, and we would, if 
we could, now begin to sing a new song of welcome to 
a minister who is making such progress. But we are 
shocked into silence by his closing saying: That " Spir- 
itualism is made up of the odds and ends of all creeds, 
all absurdities, and all characters." 



APPENDIX. 269 

Possibly there is truth in the first statement : in fact, 
there is truth in it all ; but the inference is slightly un- 
charitable, not to say unchristian. Now just take an 
illustration : A magnificent bouquet of flowers is always 
made up of the odds and ends of the garden. Who 
wants the rough roots and prickly stalks, when one can 
obtain the sweet green leaves (the " odds ") along with 
the thrice-blessed flowers (the " ends ")which grow upon 
the tip-top places and upon the outermost branchlets 
of the flowering trees and shrubs ? It would not be 
unfair — in fact it is truly scientific — to say that your 
minister himself was made (by God, of course) of the 
odds and ends of physical Nature. He is a compound 
of gases, liquids, and solids, which were elementary ; 
the very odds and ends of millions upon millions of 
organized bodies in the lower and lowest walks of crea- 
tion. Your minister need not feel disheartened and 
humiliated, because, physically and mentally, he is 
nothing but an organized bouquet of such gases as 
oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc. ; of such fluids as 
bromine, mercury, phosphorus, etc. ; of such solids as 
iron, sulphur, lime, etc. Nay, he should preach truth- 
telling sermons all just the same, and be properly re- 
munerated therefor ; his origin and constitution, com- 
posed of odds and ends, not being remembered to his 
personal disadvantage. 

Nor would we in this place array against his theology 
or against his Christianity the ten thousand and one 
absurdities of Oriental mythology and religious specu- 
lation which have at last culminated in this popular 
system which passes in society under the pompous title 
of " Evangelical Religion." Spiritualism, on the other 



270 APPENDIX. 

hand, is entitled to be known by a less ancient and less 
questionable parentage. It is the legitimate child qf 
modern living facts ; not the final result, as theology is, 
of ancient dead fictions. And it is also something 
worth recalling that " all characters " find shelter under 
its adoptive wings. Peter ! call thou not unclean any- 
thing which the Lord God has made. Your minister 
will recall the great story of the great ark. Did it not 
contain (by the Lord's express instructions and com- 
mands) two of every kind of four-footed beasts and a 
pair of every variety of creeping things % In a word, 
the " odds and ends " of all creation. And there were 
specimens of every character. Why, then, all this an- 
tagonism to the ark of Spiritualism % We do not want 
to put to sea in any vessel that is not absolutely sea- 
worthy, and which is not large enough to carry and 
provide comfortably for the whole human family ; 
composed as it is of all characters, of all creeds, of all 
absurdities, of all and everything, which the law of 
gravity holds lovingly and faithfully to the bosom of 
Nature. 

And with this candid declaration we bid adieu to your 
minister, simply expressing the hope, that he will con- 
tinue to lead his congregation toward the gates of light. 



APPENDIX. 271 



(15.) 
CONVERSION, OR A CHANGE OF HEART. 

" What do you understand by the religious experience styled 
1 conversion ? ' " 

Answer. — This term is used in religion to signify 
" a change of heart." 

The effort of Christians to convert the Jews, notwith- 
standing the millions of money and the great instrumen- 
talities at their command, have singularly failed, be- 
cause the Jews are very strict in the inculcation and 
observances of their religion. They marry in-and-in to 
keep the race pure-blooded, and are taught to reject 
the theories and sectarian approaches of every branch 
of Christians ; in like manner as all Christian children 
are taught to look, with the firmest prejudice, upon 
every other religion, includiug the liberal interpreta- 
tions of the Scriptures by Quakers, Unitarians, Univer- 
salists and others ; so that it may be said, truthfully, 
that the efforts of free-religionists to convert Christians 
in their midst, would be as unsuccessful as have been 
the corresponding efforts by the old sects among the 
Jews. The Christians say of the Jews, " their perver- 
sity in rejecting the gospel is a proof that they are 
under the wrath and retribution of God." But what 
shall Liberals say of the Christians, since it is self-evi- 
dent that their mental condition of blindness and indif- 
ference and stupidity and hardhearted ness is the same ? 



272 APPENDIX. 

Since the immigration of Chinese, especially since 
their extensive arrangements to dwell and make money 
among the mild and exemplary Christians of California 
— strong sectarian efforts have been instituted for their 
" conversion." Conversion from what ? and to what ? 
Answer, from their heathenish form of superstition 
to the evangelical creeds most popular in this country. 
All Chinese, like the genuine Japanese, appreciate the 
advantage of knowledge. They have an intense natural 
passion for learning all there is to be known ; thus pre- 
senting, to all respectable Christians, a most import- 
ant and timely example. They attend school most 
gladly. Some of them are learning rapidly both to 
read and write the English language ; to sing Sun- 
day-school ballads ; and, lately, are striving to take 
an active interest in the so-called miracles of popu- 
lar theology; which miracles, because they are so 
ancient <, are precious to the Christian believer. A story 
is told by a lady correspondent, which illustrates the 
popular idea, and gives a fair report of the success of 
" conversion." 

" Some years ago," she says, u when I lived in the 
mines, a Chinaman assisted me in my household duties. 
He was very intelligent, and extremely desirous to 
learn to read and write, and I took much pleasure in 
teaching him. One day a bright thought entered my 
mind. I would make a Christian of Yun Sooi, and he 
could return to China and preach the gospel to the 
heathen ! I frequently read aloud to him half an hour 
in the evening. I chose some of the most interesting 
chapters in the New Testament for my reading. He 
listened attentively, as usual, but showed no keen inter- 



APPENDIX. 273 

est. Determined to awaken some surprise, at least, I 
read one evening the story of the raising of Lazarus, 
altering the words to suit his comprehension. I fin- 
ished, and there was a pause. Yun Sooi was in deep 
thought. I saw I had made an impression, and visions 
of the heathens flocking to hear my convert preach the 
Gospel, and converted to Christianity through my in- 
strumentality, flashed across my vision. After awhile 
I said, ' What you think V ' I don't know — very 
good.' ' You sabe ? ' ' Yes ; one man he die, another 
tell him he get up all alive again.' ' Yes ; Jesus one 
very great man.' 'Oh! I don't know; good many 
China doctors tell me dead man he get up and walk — 
ail same.' Evidently a miracle did not surprise him. 
They were common events in the Flowery Kingdom ! 
Again he relapsed into thought. Anxious to know 
what impression was made, I again questioned him. 
'What you think?' 'One man die — he lay in the 
ground four days ; one man tell him get up — he stand 
on his feet.' ' Yes, that's all right,' I replied. ' Well, 
I think he been dead four days he smell very had.'' I 
concluded that I was out of my sphere when attempt- 
ing missionary work, and have never since tried to con- 
vert the heathen." 

Thus the lady wisely concluded ; and in a time not 
very far future, it is believed that her conclusion will 
be the practical conclusion of every truly conscientious 
and intelligent mind ; at least, such is the prayerful 
hope of every true reformer. 

"But," it is asked by the Christian reader," do you not admit 
that there is some good accomplished by missionaries ? " 



274 APPENDIX. 

Answer.— Certainly, friend! No sincere effort is 
utterly barren of good. But all sectarian missionary 
effort is, at best, a negative (doubtful) benefit to its re- 
cipients. The true missionary is a preacher and prac- 
titioner of fraternal love, justice, truth, liberty. He 
goes to a stranger with the love of a brother in his 
bosom. For do you not know that the idea of brother 
was born in the warm heart of universal equal rights ? 
There is in this gospel no sectarianism, no catechism, no 
creed, no dogmatism, none of the littleness of Christian 
ignorance and fanaticism. The Father-and-Mother 
Fountain of the Universe sends the streams of love and 
life which throb through human souls. " Oh, brother 
man, fold to thy heart thy brother." Freely and 
broadly the Divine Bounty pours itself through all 
living human hearts. When this Divine Love is felt 
positively, then selfishness surrenders to benevolence ; 
then creeds and private partialities give way to public 
virtue and universal good will. Fraternal love is the 
missionary blossom of a spiritual civilization. Selfish- 
ness is to the savage what brotherly love is to the civil- 
ized state of humanity. Let fraternal, love universally 
prevail! It is the only infallible remedy for war, 
cruelty, and crime ; it is the triumph of the Father-and- 
Mother Spirit in the human heart ; it means the over- 
throw of selfishness, and the inauguration of the harmo- 
nial kingdom among men. 



" Granted!" you exclaim. "But has not each individual soul 
got something to do to work out his own salvation, to accomplish in 
himself something like a change of heart, or a" conversion from 
evil to good ? " 



APPENDIX. 275 

Answer. — If you permit me to substitute the more 
correct word, " elimination ," for the hackneyed term 
" conversion," I answer that every individual has a 
deep, constant, prayerful w T ork to do for and within 
himself ; and thence for and within the whole human 
family. Here let me explain to you my meaning, as 
follows : 

The human mind inherits its past; that is, each 
mentality holds in its constitution the essential drift of 
everything which preceded it in its own special line of 
development. Hence, you obtain, by this law of her- 
edity, an explanation of the great number and variety 
of individual defects, faults, evils, peculiarities, and 
imperfections. To be truly " converted," to rise supe- 
rior to these — to recognize and " eliminate " hereditary 
evils and misdirections, is the mind's highest and grand- 
est achievement. Individual errors must be eliminated 
from the character, must be thrown off, like perspira- 
tion from the skin, before the mind is capable of true 
happiness, and before it is qualified for the perception 
and expression of "truth, pure and simple." If the 
tree, is crooked because the twig was bent, and if the 
twig received its wrong direction from surrounding 
circumstances — just as the common mind is formed by 
education — then, since the mind is not a tree, but is a 
magazine of elastic powers, affections, and will, it fol- 
lows that the mental tree need not, like the insensate 
oak, remain bent ; but, on the contrary, the mind may, 
by the exercise of its own great love-and-will powers, 
eliminate both the causes and the consequences of its 
inherited faults, evils, and errors. 

Take history (for example), which is full of errors 



276 APPENDIX. 

caused by the special educational and patriotic preju- 
dices of its writers ; or take our popular systems of 
religion, which overflow with pious fraud, which makes 
a considerable portion of both history and religion un- 
reliable. JNow, let all errors and misstatements be 
eliminated from history and from theology, and the re- 
mainder would be exceedingly small in amount, and 
surprisingly commonplace in quality. You well enough 
know by this time that friction in the " mills of God," 
— or what is called " the experiences of life," which 
means the same thing — wonderfully, though painfully, 
promotes elimination and " conversion." 

" Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," 

because there is in every wrong a germ of retribution. 
The erroneous condition — that of a king, for example — 
is punished by the principle of Justice. Truly hath it 
been written, " A prosperous worthlessness is the curse 
of high life." A crown composed of good thoughts and 
good deeds is not for the king's head. The elimination 
of error and injustice from a kingdom would be sig- 
nalized by a revolution — the destruction of the throne, 
the establishment of a heavenly form of government, 
recognizing the right of all persons to " life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness," which would include the right 
of all responsible persons to vote for the laws they are 
asked to obey. And the elimination of all error from 
a person — were it possible — would be attended with a 
serious inconvenience ; for it would certainly unfit the 
mind for contact with its fellows in error. Such a per- 
son would no longer be " a little lower than the angels," 
but would have become in reality an angel ; and, there- 



APPENDIX. 277 

fore, so unlike mankind, that they would probably reject 
his teachings and nail him to a cross ! 



(16.) 

CATASTROPHIC CONVULSIONS IN THE 
OKTHODOX HELL. 

A perturbed correspondent, whose mind is not yet 
free of the fears excited by his early Sunday-school 
lessons, writes thus : 

" My Esteemed Davis :— On reading the ' Stellar Key,' Part I., 
about eight years ago, or soon after it was published, I was horribly 
disturbed by what you quoted about 'Hell,' etc., on page 136, etc. 
(I am glad you excluded it from all later editions.) What made 
you print those horrible speculations at all ? I never could see the 
utility of giving publicity to such inconsistent notions, etc. 

" (Signed) M. G. L." 

Answer. — Those quotations from Swedenborg and 
Harris were introduced to exhibit the great contrast 
between errors in theology and the harmonious truths 
of universal Nature. For is not the presentation of 
truth the best antidote for error ? 

The disclosures of truth in the present volume — 
manifesting the unity and boundless glory of the Uni- 
vercoelum, all which precludes the possibility of any 
such places as an orthodox hell or heaven — are deemed 
a sufficient refutation of all evangelical teachings on 
these subjects. Knowing what we know, and believing 



278 APPENDIX. 

by the necessity of positive evidence what we believe, 
it becomes difficult to treat those heathen conceptions 
seriously. They excite feelings akin to irony and 
playful sarcasm. A fair-minded and eloquent minister 
(Dr. H. W. Thomas, of Chicago,) has recently, like 
many another clergyman, rekindled the terrible tires of 
controversy, thus : 

"The awful pictures of hell in the past ages rise up before the 
prophetic realization of minds in our day, and they see the meaning 
— the terrible fact set forth, and they are not afraid to ask if such a 

thing can be true Men will rise up and ask if the Bible 

teaches such things. And if told that it does, they will ask who 
put such things in the Bible. And if told that God put them there, 
they will ask, Who is God, that He should say or do such awful 

things ? And if pressed, they will deny both God and the Bible 

Men are ready to believe in punishment for sin here and hereafter 
— they feel it, they know it — but they are not willing to believe in 
all the terrible ideas of Dante and Milton ; ideas that were possible 
only in the cold dark age, and that rob the universe of God and all 
sense of justice or right." 

Conferences on this hell-question are now frequent 
among ministers of every denomination. Such a con- 
ference took place in the metropolis on Monday morning, 
recently. After gossiping over church affairs, they ap- 
proached the subject near enough to smell the fathom- 
less subject of hell, and to confess how exceedingly 
slender is the thread of infinite grace upon which they 
hope to reach the private orthodox Paradise somewhere 
in the eternal world. 

Among them was an agitator whose specific function 
seemed to be to stir up angry feelings. He filled all 
with consternation, irrepressible fear and tremblings, 
and unutterably horrible forebodings, by proposing for 



APPENDIX. 279 

discussion such soul-harrowing and heart-rending ques- 
tions as : 

' ' Shall the wicked be finally destroyed ? Will the wicked 

in hell finally become extinct ? Are the future punishments 

of the wicked permanent ? Are the conscious punishments 

of the wicked endless ? Are the punishments of the wicked 

in hell parallel to (i.e., of equal duration with) the eternal bliss of 
the righteous in heaven ? " 

These frightful and wicked questions are enough to 
overthrow human reason. 

On this occasiou an elderly clergyman of some note, 
who trembled in his every joint, remarked that "the 
subject of hell must not be ignored. The foundation 
of the Church stands upon this question ! Why shut 
out the light? [He meant the light of hell !] During 
the past week," he continued, warming up to the tragi- 
cal subject, " I have been approached by the members 
of my congregation, saying, ' I see that some are 
dropping their eternal damnation.' If the punishment 
of the wicked is not endless, then the joy of the 
righteous is not. One doctrine stands with the 
other. If certain views promulgated, be allowed to go 
unanswered, it will make me desperate. My very soul 
is absorbed. It's an awful thing with me. Therefore 
I propose the following : Do the Scriptures give hope 
that the wicked shall finally cease to exist % " 

One tall, bilious, dejected-looking minister thought 
the public discussion of the annihilation of the wicked 
would endanger the safety of souls present. But 
another, whose breakfast had suited him, said : " Dur- 
ing the seven years that I have accepted this theory of 
destruction 1 have converted four hundred and fifty 



280 APPENDIX. 

souls. And I have not lost an iota of my interest for the 
salvation of mankind." 

Here we have the sweet assurance that, notwithstand- 
ing his heart-rending annihilation theory, one minister 
had " converted four hundred and fifty souls ! " What 
beautiful subjects these four hundred and fifty converts 
would be for microscopic investigation ! Tyndall and 
Dr. Buchner might make a few experiments upon these 
sulphates of humanity, who have escaped the fate of 
ultimate annihilation ! What prismatic splendors 
might be obtained by subjecting these four hundred 
and fifty converts to the action of the heat-beams of the 
sun! From a true orthodox hell-and-devil convert the 
brimstone might be eliminated, leaving nothing but the 
pure, unsophisticated simplicity of faith in the grace of 
God — via the Episcopal or some other Church. The 
exceeding minuteness of the residuum, after extracting 
the natural sulphurous qualities, makes it necessary to 
employ a microscope. Four hundred and fift}' converts 
— if the old metaphysical fathers of popular theology 
were not mistaken — might sit comfortably, tete-a-tete, 
and promenade about on the point of a cambric needle ! 
And what is more — if some Spiritualist philosophers 
are not mistaken — an army to the number of millions 
of these same converted souls might sweep headlong 
through the granite hills of New Hampshire without 
impairing the compact crystals for building purposes ! 

In the heart of New York, amid the benefits of free 
schools, surrounded by the achievements of science and 
art, in the last half of the nineteenth century — can any 
rational mind believe that any assemblage of ministers 
could be induced to display such wholesale ignorance 



APPENDIX. 281 

of and indifference to the progress of ideas as is indi- 
cated by the speeches and discussions reported in the 
foregoing paragraphs ? And yet we insist npon shout- 
ing triumphantly the heroic maxim — " The world 
moves ! " 

Some modern philosophers will here note a gratify- 
ing coincidence, irrespective of partition walls and sec- 
tarian barriers — in this : That, whereas the above men- 
tioned minister is "desperate" lest the rule which 
accomplished the curtailment of the eternity of hell- 
torments might reach over into Paradise, and result in 
a corresponding abridgment of the eternal joys of the 
angels. Indeed, what logic can be at first more taking 
than the saving that " a stick that has one end, has two ? " 
or, that " whatever has a beginning will also have an 
end." Consequently, it follows that "if the pains of 
hell and the joys of heaven have a beginning, they must 
also at some time cease ; unless it be discovered that the 
fiat of the Almighty, by instituting and keeping up a 
perpetual miracle, insures the eternity of the experi- 
ences appropriate to the conflicting sides of his universe. 
Prove that eternal punishment will, at some time in the 
great future, come to an end — in the annihilation of the 
wicked, by " one fell swoop " of the wrathful Infinite 
Power — and where is your evidence that there will not 
also be at some time a total destruction of all the sweet 
candidates for eternal happiness % In fact, this branch 
of the subject is so appalling, to say nothing of its pathos, 
and the terrible tax it imposes upon one's susceptibili- 
ties, that the reader will be good enough to pardon me 
if I refuse to dwell longer upon it. 

Let us, for a moment's relief, turn our attention to the 



282 APPENDIX. 

remarks of another pulpit agitator. He proceeds to say, 
that there " must be a difference between utter nothing- 
ness and destruction. For instance, a house can be 
destroyed, or a tree, but it is a something. " I am so san- 
guine of my views," he says, " that I believe the whole 
Christian Church will sooner or later embrace them. If 
the other question does not meet your approbation, try 
this : ' Does the future punishment of the wicked imply 
their eternal consciousness.' " 

This question brings another minister to the red-hot 
point quicker than one can boil an egg. He thus re- 
lieved himself : " We have had too much of this at the 
last meeting. There is danger ! [Cries of * Amen.'] 
We are now to startle the religious community for ten 
weeks to come, when we should devote our efforts to 
something higher. The devil is rubbing his hands glee- 
fully ; he has never had a better chance than the 
present. If this question be adopted, I must read upon 
hell, instead of warning sinners from the wrath to come. 
Are we to begin the year with this devilish, or hellish, 
excitement? I have no objection that this theme be 

discussed in March But I am not in favor of the 

discussion of this question with open doors." 

This sensation extended to another, who said : " There 
is no use ignoring the important subject under discus- 
sion." He thought it was not endangering the salvation 
of souls ! " Rev. John Wesley," he affirmed, " did not 
hesitate to speak of hell and damnation ; why should 
we % Perhaps there may be greater ones here than he. 
I think this question should be discussed for the salva- 
tion of souls. If the doctrine of destruction be accepted, 
I go about carelessly; but make punishment eternal, 



APPENDIX. 283 

and I go along carefully. I do not pretend to be an 
angel. I am liable to err, but when the doctrines of the 
Church are assailed, I rise to arms for its defense. You 
tell me to be calm ! I cannot, when that which is so 
dear to me is wronged. I know that the discussion will 
do good. The reason why we do not get along faster is 
because we do not have enough hell in our religion ! " 

Many believe that Christianity would get along faster 
as soon as the preachers infuse " more hell " into their 
beautiful religion. A smile of satisfaction ripples over 
every ministerial countenance. More hair put into mor- 
tar makes it stick better ; more yeast in flour makes the 
bread lighter ; why will not more hell in one's religion 
make it more successful among the ignorant and cow- 
ardly ? Seriously, hell is an invention of ancient East- 
ern priests, even before the days of Zoroaster. 

But is that little hottom-fact any reason why evangeli- 
cal priests in our day, shouldn't have the exclusive use 
of the invention of their respected ancestors ? 

" The English word l hell ' is derived from the Anglo- 
Saxon and Teutonic c hele ' or ' helan,' which meant a 
covered or hidden place, and the primary and legitimate 
meaning of the word is the grave, the hidden world, the 
place of departed spirits. When a man dies they could 
only say of him that he had passed out of sight, gone 
into a hidden place, hell. Originally this word hell 
conveyed no idea of punishment or suffering, but only 
of concealment or mystery. The thatch of a cottage, 
the place where the tailor swept his shreds, the hidden 
corner where the innocent penalty in a game of forfeits 
was exacted, was hell. Thus the word, from having 
conveyed the idea of concealment or mystery, has now 



284 APPENDIX. 

the horrible meaning of i everlasting torture.' This 
change in the word may be legitimate enough, but it 
utterly unfits the word for use in the English Bible as a 
translation of the original, because there is no word either 
in the Hebrew or Greek of the Bible that corresponds 
with the present meaning of the English word ' hell.' 
There are three words that in the original language of 
this Bible are rendered into English by the word ' hell.' 
The Hebrew word * sheol ' in the Old Testament occurs 
sixty-four times in the Bible, and it is translated ' hell ' 
thirty-one times, ' grave ' thirty times, and ' pit ' three 
times. It should never in a single instance be translated 
hell, for the Old Testament has no such idea as is now 
conveyed by the word hell. It means the grave or the 
place of the dead below the earth. Neither the doctrine 
of endless punishment, nor even that of future retribu- 
tion, is taught or even alluded to by the Mosaic law." 

A broad-minded preacher (Frothingham) in a recent 
discourse, said : " The true teaching of Christianity is 
to reduce to the very lowest point the element of pain 
and sorrow. To say that there is a Supreme Being, all 
wise and all good, and at the same time that there is a 
bell, is a contradiction which shocks all philosophy and 
all human intelligence. If there were such things as 
eternal curses and damnation, and God so willed it, then 
He could not have done more to justify the Atheist in 
his disbelief and to prove that the devil was master of 
the world both before and after death. God is love, and 
through love the whole world will be converted, even 
Satan himself eventually yielding to its all-pervading 
power. 

"Wherever science has entered," said the preacher, 



APPENDIX. 285 

" all such doctrines as that of future punishment have 
fled, and when science has completed its work there will 
be no evil spirits left. It was only by an arbitrary decree 
of the Church that the doctrine of future punishment 
was ever entertained, and intelligence, philosophy, 
science, and the human heart are all opposed to the be- 
lief in a hell. 

" It is too true that a large number of professing 
Christians believe in a hell, and many preachers object 
to agitating the subject for the reason that the doctrine of 
future punishment cannot be withdrawn without weak- 
ening the whole plan of Christian redemption. Accord- 
ing to the orthodox theories there must be a hell to 
balance heaven, because if it were not so, men would 
have no cause to repent. They would enjoy life, and 
then lay down to their final rest in peace." 

We close our answer in the words of one who, 
although still a preacher, has long since outgrown the 
nightmare dogmas of superstition : " I hold that obedi- 
ence and disobedience will forever produce their cor- 
responding pleasure or pain. I hold that if, in the life 
to come, men persist in the violation of the laws of their 
being, they will unquestionably suffer pain and penalty; 
but there is no evidence whatever that they will, and 
there are many presumptions that they will not. I do 
not think that probation closes with death. In another 
life I can conceive that the experience of this life, 
which, by reason of man's plrysical environments and 
social influences, has not wrought reformation of virtue, 
may yet in another sphere and under more favorable 
circumstances bring men to a very much higher plat- 
form and standpoint of conduct and of character. We 



286 APPENDIX. 

have reason to suppose that pain and suffering, which 
in this world are of an educating nature, will have a 
stronger- educating force hereafter ', and that they will 
be continued as long as there is hope of benefit in them. 
... The continuance of suffering after it is hopeless 
in respect to the individual, and needless in respect to 
society, is cruelty, and I cannot conceive of any man of a 
deeply moral and reflective nature who would bring him- 
self to believe that God will bring into life, as He has, 
myriads which utterly outrun all computation, under cir- 
cumstances in which they not only have no help whatso- 
ever to effect moral growth, but where all their surround- 
ings are adverse and perverse, and allow them to con- 
tinue under such known conditions, to reproduce genera- 
tions innumerable, and then to place them in a great 
hereafter where the principal feature is suffering and 
where suffering has ceased to have any moral benefit, 
and so continue them there forever and forever. This is 
to create a department of the universe for the purposes, 
simply, of Suffering ; but needless suffering is cruelty, 
and any being who inflicts needless suffering is tyranni- 
cal. . . . I do not believe that many men could calmly 
measure the nature of a single soul, and its suscepti- 
bilities to suffering, and the power of Almighty God to 
create suffering in that soul, and of a continued exist- 
ence only for the purposes of suffering through illimit- 
able ages, forever and forever, and then multiply that 
soul until there are no materials left on which to in- 
scribe the figures, until the swarming myriads defy all 
measurement or conception of the imagination ; then, 
overhanging the mighty abyss, contemplate the writhing 
anguish, the screaming agony, the hideous and loath- 



APPENDIX. 287 

some suffering, the brutal indignities of sulphurous 
demons, the carnival of animalism, and yet be able to 
turn and utter the first words of the Lord's Prayer, 
" Our Father ! " Neither is the trouble alleviated by 
saying that the penalties are not material anguish, but 
they are the torments of conscience, of anguish and 
despair. While we revolt at physical torment, the re- 
fined and cultured nature learns to estimate mental 
suffering as even more exquisite and more horrible than 
mere bodily torment ; and to teach an eternity of con- 
scious mental suffering, after all chance or hope of ref- 
ormation is gone, shocks that true moral sense which 
has been educated by the interior love-nature of God, 
which condemns and destroys such a vision of future 
useless eternal punishment as a nightmare vision of 
barbarism." 



(17.) 
HOW TO PROGRESS IN NEW IDEAS. 

Often it is asked : " Why do not individuals make 
more rapid progress in perceiving and adopting these 
new harmonial Ideas ? ? ' There is an all-suflicient ex- 
planation, a plain cause, which, I think, must be self- 
evident to every mind observer. " Mankind do not 
advance in truth faster," I reply, " because they do not 
educate themselves to think deeply and to reason cor- 
rectly." Let me fully explain what I mean, as follows : 

Reasoning from effect to cause is called inductive 



288 APPENDIX. 

philosophy (masculine), which is the reverse of the de- 
ductive philosophy (feminine), which means reasoning 
from cause to effect. 

The first method is called scientific or sensuous ; 
the last is the intuitional or supersensuous. Both 
methods of reasoning are useful in the work of discover- 
ing and arriving at truth. And yet these opposite 
methods represent two exactly different types of mind. 

According to Pope, the Supreme Being obeys the de- 
ductive principle. Living at the centre, and being, per 
se, the Fountain of Causation, He is of necessity obedient 
to the intuitional and deductive process. And thus the 
poet's insight has expressed it — 



" God loves from whole to parts ; but human soul 
Must rise from individual to the whole." 



Reasoning from causes to effects, or from effects to 
causes — unless the mind can comprehend and adopt the 
true system of relations and bearings — will, I am aware, 
impart but little satisfaction. And yet no real progress 
can be made either in science or philosophy without 
profound researches into causes and their effects. 

We admit that the different sects are supported by 
wealthy and sincere persons who do not, cannot, or 
dare not use their reason upon the origin and elements 
of their creeds. 

Church dogmas and creeds did not originate in the 
domain of Reason. Hence it is impossible to sustain 
them by an appeal to Science, which is the busiest child 
of Reason. 

Creed supporters believe things both contradictory 



APPENDIX. 289 

and inconsequential — doctrines of God and of the sonl 
at once absurd and impossible — theories without foun- 
dation either in Nature or in humanity. 

Suppose we try Reason upon some church dogmas. 
For example: Reasoning from effect to cause, would 
convince any candid mind that the rainbow — : which is, 
and always was, produced by a natural refraction of the 
rays of light — is, consequently, a part of the system of 
Nature, simply because there is a sun in the heavens. 
Rut in the churches and catechisms it is unblushingly 
taught that the rainbow was supernaturally created by 
Deity as a signature of His solemn promise that he 
would not again subject the human race to cold water 
treatment! Reasoning from effects to their causes 
would hopelessly destroy the doctrine that there can 
exist three equal, infinite Gods in one personal and local 
head. Three infinites in one divinity is a docrine which 
conflicts with God's immutable laws of mathematics. 
Religionists generally violate the divine laws of num- 
bers and proportions in order to believe what they sup- 
pose to be God's Holy Word ! |Reasoning from effects 
to causes would overthrow the Church doctrine of the 
origin of sin and evil ; and if these are proved false, 
what would become of the doctrine of the atonement, 
which is founded upon the first proposition ? If you 
reason, you discover a false basis beneath every theolo- 
gical doctrine. 

Therefore, if you be time-serving and timid, you will 
sa} T : " I dare not reason concerning these sacred 
things : " or, if you be weak-minded, you will say, " I 
cannot reason on the incomprehensible doctrines of my 
church ; " or, if you be narrow and opinionated, you will 



290 APPENDIX. 

say, " I will not reason concerning matters which must 
be believed on penalty of eternal damnation." 

Respected reader ! Where do you belong in this 
classification? Are you timid f Are you weak? Are 
you opinionated f 

In conclusion : If you will but reason from cause to 
effect, at this juncture, you will easily discover why you 
do not make progress in new ideas. 



END. 



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concerning methods of treatment hitherto unknown to the world, and imparting im- 
portant suggestions respecting the Will Power and the Self-Healing Energies, which 
are better than medicine. It is a plain, simple guide to health, with no quackery, no 
humbug, no universal panacea. Price, $1.50 ; postage, 10 cents. 



ANSWERS TO EVER-RECURRING QUESTIONS PROM THE 
PEOPLE. 

During the period which has elapsed since the publication of the author's work 
entitled the "Penetralia,"* multitude of questions have been propounded to him. 
From this list of several hundred interrogatories, those of the moat permanent inter* 



mt and highest value have been carefully selected, and the result is the present 
volume, comprising well-considered and intelligent replies to more than two hun- 
dred important questions. It is believed by hundreds that this work is one of th« 
most interesting and useful volumes that has been issued. It invites the perusal not 
only of those vitally interested in the topics discussed, but of all persous capable of 
putting a question. It awakens inquiry and develops thought. The wide range of 
subjects embraced can be inferred from the table of contents. An examination of 
the book itself will reveal the clearness of style and vigor of method characterizing 
the replies. Price, $1.50 ; postage, 10 cents. 



MORNING LECTURES: 

Twenty Discourses, delivered in the City of Nfew York, in the 
Winter and Spring of 1863. 

This volume is overflowing with that peculiar inspiration which carries the 
reader into the region of new ideas. The discourses are clothed in language plain 
and forcible, and the arguments and illustrations convey conviction. Among the 
subjects treated are : — "The World's True Redeemer;" "The End of the World;" 
" The Keign of Anti-Christ;" " The Spirit, and its Circumstances ;" " Eternal Yalue 
of Pure Purposes ;" "Wars of Blood, Brain, and Spirit ;'■' " False and True Educa- 
tion ;** " Social Life in the Summer Land ;" &c. This volume of plain lectures is just 
the book to put into the hands of skeptics and new beginners in Spiritualism. Price, 
$1.50 ; postage, 10 cents. 



A STELLAR KEY TO THE SUMMER LAND. 

Part I. Illustrated with Diagrams and Engravings of Celestial Scenery. 

The author has heretofore explained the wonders of creation, the mysteries of 
science and philosophy, the order, progress, and harmony of Nature in thousands of 
pages of living inspiration. He has solved the mystery of death, and revealed the 
connection between the world of matter and th> world of spirits. Mr. Davis opens 
wide the door of future human life, and shows us flhere we are to dwell when we put 
aside the garments of mortality for the vestments of angels. The account of the 
spiritual universe; the immortal mind looking into the heavens; the existence of a 
spiritual zone— its Possibilities and probabilities— its formation and scientific cer- 
tainty ; the harmonies of the universe ; the physical scenery and constitution of the 
Bummer Land — its location, and domestic life in the spheres, are new and wonderfully 
interesting. Price, 75 cents ; paper covers, 50 cents ; postage 5 cents. 



ARABULA; OR, THE DIVINE GUEST. 

This fresh and beautiful volume is selling rapidly, because it supplies a deep reli- 
gious want in the hearts of the people. Best literary minds are gratified, while truly 
religious readers are spiritually fed with the contents of this volume. All who want 



to understaml and enjoy the graLd central truths of the Harmonial Philosophy, &ai 
all who would investigate the teachings and religion of Spiritualism, should read 
this inspired book. It contains a New Collection of G-ospels by Saints not before 
canonized, and its chapters are teeming with truths for humanity, and with fresh 
tidings from the beloved beyond the tomh. The names of the new Saints are: — -H 
Eishis, St. Menu, St. Confucius, St. Siamer, St. Syrus, St. Gabriel, St. John, St 
Pnenraa, St. James, St. Gerrit, St. Theodore, St. Octavius, St. Samuel, St. Eliza, St 
Emma, St Ralph, St. Asaph, St Mary, St Selden, St. Lotta. Price, $1.50; postage, 
10 cents. 



THE MAGIC STAFF: 
An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis. 

"This most singular biography of a most singular person," has been extensively 
read in this country, and is now translated and published in the German language. 
It is a complete personal history of the clairvoyant experiences of the author from 
his earliest childhood to 1S56. All important details are carefully and conscientiously 
given. Every statement is authentic and beyond controversy. In this volume 
(including the autobiographical parts of "Arabnla* 1 and "Memoranda" which 
enter largely. into the authors personal experiences), the public will find a Jinal 
ansxcer to all slanders and misrepresentations. Tiiousands of copies of the 
" Magic Staff" have been sold in the United States, and the demand, instead of 
being supplied, is increasing. Price, $1.75 ; postage, 12 cents. 



MEMORANDA OF PERSONS, PLACES, AND EVENTS: 

Embracing Authentic Facts, Visions, Impressions, Discoveries in 
Magnetism, Clairvoyance, and Spiritualism. 
This volume of transcripts from the observation and experience of Mr. Davis 
will be welcomed with great plea&ure by his tens of thousands of readers, in whicn 
they will find a great variety of those fresh and fleeting "impressions" of the 
inspired seer, carefully set down by his own hand for a period of over twenty-two 
years, that can not but let them lurther than ever into his own nature, and the mys- 
terious realms which his vision is permitted to penetrate and search. There is a 
peculiar freshness about this latest book from Mr. "Davis that makes it specially 
attractive to the general reader. His off-hand characterization of persons of note 
will strike all as peculiarly apt and effective. In lact, it is a sort of mirror for all to 
look into. This volume should be read by all who have perused the "Magic Staff." 
Fhe Appendix, containing the fine translation of Zschokke's tale of the " Transfig- 
aration," will attract all to its perusal, since it illustrates the curative powers of 
human magnetism, and the spiritual beauty and purity of the superior condition. 
This book is also particularly valuable to history, because it contains a chaptei 
written by Mary F. Davis, concerning the "Introduction of the Harmonial Phi- 
.oaophy into Germany." Price, $1.50; Postage, 10 cents. 



6 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPECIAL. PROVIDENCES. 

This is a small pamphlet of fifty -five pages, but is living with thought. Th« 
author considers the question, "Are there Special Providences?" and no one can 
fail to be instructed and elevated by its perusal. The pamphlet contains T\rc 
Visions, and An Argument. Price, 30 cents. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OP SPIRITUAL INTERCOURSE. 

Contents. — Truth and Mystery; God's Universal Providence; The Miracles ot 
this Age; The Decay of Superstition; The Guardianship of Spirits; The Discern- 
ment of Spirits; The Stratford Mysteries; The Doctrine of Evil Spirits; The 
Origin of Spirit Sounds; Concerning Sympathetic Spirits; The Formation of 
Circles ; The Eesurrection of the Dead ; A Voice from the Spirit Land ; The True 
Religion. In this thrilling work the reader is presented with an account of the 
very wonderful Spiritual Developments at the house of the Rev. Dr. Phelphs, of 
Stratford, Connecticut; and besides these, the work is replete with similar cases iD 
all parts of the country. This work is completed by its sequel, entitled " Present 
Age and Inner Life." Price, cloth, $1.25 ; postage, 10 cents. 



FREE THOUGHTS CONCERNING RELIGION. 

This volume contains short arguments, fresh and vigorous, substantiated by plain 
historical and geological facts, against the popularly received idea that the " Bible is 
the Word of God.'" Infallibility is demolished, and creeds finely pulverized in the 
mill of truth. Recently enlarged, it is calculated to " stir up thorght" in a bigoted 
neighborhood. We recommend " Free Thoughts Concerning Religion." Price, cloth, 
75 cents ; paper, 50 cents ; postage, 5 cents. 



THE HARMONIAL MAN. 

Contents.— How shall we Improve Society? The Influence of Churches; The 
Necessity of Organic Liberty; Mankind's Natural Needs; The Means by which to 
Secure Them; The Philosophy of Producing Rain; A Statement of Popular 
Theories; The Causes of Rain Explained; The Philosophy of Controlling liain; 
Answer to Scientific Objections; Plagiarism; Clairvoyance Illustrated; What will 
People Say; The Pirate's Simple Narrative. The contents of this little work are 
designed to enlarge man's views concerning the political and ecclesiastical conditio? 
of our country, and to point out, or at least to suggest, the paths of reform which 
the true Harmonial Man shall tread. We might add many commendatory notices 
of the press, but it is deemed sufficient to give the reader an idea of the work, bj 



publishing its table of contents. Those who know Mr. Davis 1 style of treating hit 
subjects, will not need to be informed that this little book is full of important 
thoughts. Price, in paper, 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents ; postage, 5 cents. 



THE APPROACHING CRISIS: 

A Review of Dr. BushnelTs Lectures on SupernaturaUem. 

The great question of this age, which is destined to convulse and divide Protesi 
antism, and around which all other religious controversies must necessarily revolve, 
is exegetically foreshadowed in this Review, which is composed of six discourses 
delivered by the author before the Harmonial Brotherhood of Hartford, Connecticut. 
It is affirmed by many of the must careful readers of Mr. Davis's works, that the 
best explanation of the "Origin of Evil," and of "Free Agency," is to be fonnd in 
this Review. Price, cloth, $1.00; postage, 10 cents. 



THE HISTORY AND PHTLOSOPHY OP EVIL. 

The headings of the chapters in this pamphlet give an idea of its purport, viz. : — 
L The Unity of Truth ; II. The Anti-Human Theory of Evil ; III. The Inter-Hu- 
man Theory of Evil; IV. The Super-Human Theory of Evil; V. The Spiritual 
Theory of Evil ; VI. The Harmonial Theory of Evil; VII. The Cause of Civiliza- 
tion ; VIII. The World's True Saviour Discovered ; IX. The Harmonial Cure of 
Evil. The whole question of evil — individual, social, national, and general — is fully 
analyzed and answered by the author in this compact pamphlet. It has been exten- 
sively circulated, and is highly prized by all intelligent readers on both sides of the 
Atlantic. Price, in paper, 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents ; postage, 5 cents. 



DEATH, AND THE AFTER LIFE. 

This little work contains three Lectures, and a Voice from the Summer Land. 
The f.Jes are: — I. Death, and the After Life; II. Scenes in the Summer Land; III. 
Society in the Summer Land; IV. Voice from James Victor Wilson. Thousands ol 
this new and consoling pamphlet have been published and sold. In the sick-room, 
where spiritual consolations are required, or in the hands of the lonely and bereft 
this work is effective. Price, in paper, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents ; postage, 5 cents. 



THE CHTLDRENS PROGRESSIVE LYCEUM. 

A Manual, with Directions for the Organization and Management of Sunday 
Bchool3, adapted to the Bodies and Minds of the Young, and containing Rules 
Methods, Exercises, Marches, Lessons, Questions and Answers, Invocations, Silver 



Chain Recitations, Hymns, and Songs. This Manual is a chart to indicate the bfst 
methods in the grouping and educating process. Price, 60 cents ;_pustage, 3 cents; 
for twelve copies, $6.50 ; for fifty copies, $22.00 ; and for one hundred copies, $40.00. 

THE DIAKKA, AND THEIR EARTHLY VICTIMS. 

Being an explanation of much that is false and repulsive in Spiritualism. Cloth, 
50 cents ; paper covers, 25 cents. 

THE TEMPLE: ON DISEASES OF THE BRAIN 
AND NERVES. 

Developing Wis Origin and Philosophy of Mania, Insanity and Crime; ■with full 
Directions and Prescriptions for their Treatment and Cure. The book contains 460 
pages, is beautifully printed and bound, uniform with the "Harmonia," "Harbinger 
of Health," etc., with an Original Frontispiece illustrative of "Mother Nature Casting 
(D) evils Out of Her Children." Cloth $1.50 ; postage 10 cents. 

THE FOUNTAIN : WITH JETS OF NEW MEANINGS. 

Illustrated with 142 Engravings. The young as well as the old, can read it, and 
study its lessons and illustrations with ever-increasing pleasure and profit. Cloth 
binding, $1.00 ; postage, 6 cents. 

TALE OF A PHYSICIAN; OR, THE SEEDS AND 
FRUITS OF CRIME. 

In Three Parts— complete in one volume. Part I — Planting the Seeds of Crime; 
Part II— Trees of Crime in Full Bloom ; Part III— Heaping the Fruits of Crime. 
Cloth, $1.00 ; postage, 10 cents. 

THE GENESIS AND ETHICS OF CONJUGAL LOVE. 

This new book is of peculiar interest to all men and women. Paper, 50 cents ; 
cloth, 75 cents. 



COMPLETE WORKS OF A. J. DAVIS. 

COMPRISING TWENTY-NINE UNIFORM VOLUMES, ALL NEATLY BOUND IN CLOTH, $29.00 



In remitting by mail, a Post-Office Money Order on Boston, or a Draft on a Bank 
or Banking House in "Boston or New York City, payable to the order of Colby & 
Rich, is preferable to Bank Notes, since, should the Order or Draft be lost or stolen, 
it can be renewed without loss to the sender. 

JEW All Business Letters to be addresed to 

ISAAC B. RICH, Business Manager, Banner of Light, Boston, Mass. 



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